


Patch Area

by recreational



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Accidental Domesticity, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Timeline, Denial of Feelings, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, POV Alternating, Random Cases, Season/Series 08, Sibling Incest, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-18
Updated: 2017-07-20
Packaged: 2018-09-25 08:58:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 52,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9812207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/recreational/pseuds/recreational
Summary: Sam knows that, after having a home, he doesn’t want to return to the emotionally stunted relationship he and his brother had.All Dean knows is that, after a year in Purgatory, he just wants to get his act together again.What neither knows is that, once they embark on a path to synchronize their lives, they’ll end up somewhere else completely.





	1. Chapter 1

The barely warmed up ravioli didn’t look in the least like the picture on the outside of the can, which was not surprising. But the pasta’s unappetizing appearance and the smell that screamed SpaghettiOs amounted to something close to revolting to Sam, who nevertheless gulped down the mass without giving an outward sign of distaste.

Dean had cooked supper.

Poking around in his teeth with his tongue, Sam got the rest of the cheap meat out and swallowed it with some difficulty.

Damn, he had really forgotten about the shitty food. And given the contrast to three weeks ago, the differences couldn’t be any greater. Amelia’s roast had almost melted in his mouth, without having lost any of its flavor in the preparation process. He should have asked for the recipe or paid more attention when she had prepared it. Perhaps he could text her to find out…

Sam huffed out a quiet laugh. _That would cap it all._

“Ravioli ain’t half bad,” Dean muttered around his last spoonful. “Should stock up on more of  ‘em.”

Cringing, Sam pushed his bowl onto the coffee table.

“What? The _cuisine_ not up to your standards?” Dean asked in a terrible French accent.

Sam couldn’t help scrunching up his face, regretting it immediately when Dean shoved his own bowl against the one on the table. The two spoons were catapulted onto the surface, adding red blotches to the dried dark stains that had accumulated over the years.

 _God knows what that stuff is,_ Sam thought and leaned into the backrest. He pretended to be interested in the dirt for a little longer, buying time. Dean was looking at him, most likely expecting a mock apology for the disparaging of his cooking. Something that could start their usual banter.

And Sam was itching to accept the challenge. Hell, he had missed this so much during the year of Dean’s absence, the cracking of mindless jokes or insulting each other without thinking about possible consequences. And now? He had it all back: the companionable silence and the quips. Together with the filth and the microwave food.

Sam turned his head, looking Dean straight in the eye. There was the invitation to some good-natured needling. A raised brow and a crooked smile that played offended.

 _My brother the jester._ Sam inclined his head, studying the features he had not seen for a year. Purgatory had not left many traces, just an almost imperceptible deepening of the lines around Dean’s mouth. Strange, really, Sam mused. It was nothing that one could pinpoint from the outside that had changed. It was something else.

“What? Have I got sauce on my face?” Dean asked, rubbing his chin with his hand. Seemingly anxious, he waited for Sam’s reaction.

“Nah,” Sam said and directed his eyes to the TV, whose black screen reflected the scene on the couch. The opportunity to lighten the atmosphere had passed, gone just like the lingering taste of the pasta.

Yeah, the food was bad, Sam admitted to himself. Had always been when it had been Dean’s turn. No reason to make a fuss about it although it was clear that Dean could do a lot better if he put his mind to it.

Trying to mold his body onto the too small couch, Sam slithered downward a bit and then tried to rest his head without overstretching his neck. It worked somehow, yet just barely. His reflection on the TV looked like a giant attempting to fit into a children’s chair, an impression that was mostly due to the angle, Sam reckoned.

It looked uncomfortable, though. He shifted. It _was_ uncomfortable.

Sam closed his eyes, recalling the months he had spent in a real house. Amelia’s couch had been too small as well, but it had been a million times cozier. Frowning, Sam blinked back reality.

It wasn’t the food. Or the dirt. Or the fact that everything around him seemed to be worn out to the degree that it was barely hanging on to the threads. The couch could be brand new, it would not matter because the reason it didn’t feel like home wasn’t the state it was in.

“We used to be different,” Sam said. “You were different.”

Dean, who had also resorted to staring at the black screen, abruptly turned his head – which was no surprise, honestly, because as soon as the words were out, Sam could have kicked himself for them. Where had they come from anyway? To hide his agitation, he continued to fix his eyes on the TV.

“We don’t have to stick with the fancy ravioli,” he heard Dean say. “No problem to return to the classics. Baked beans for breakfast?”

Sam compressed his lips. “That’s not what I meant. Just… just forget it.”

There was shuffling, the dipping of the couch, and Sam half hoped that Dean would get up. He had missed yet another chance to change the increasingly sour atmosphere. Frantically, Sam searched for a reason for the sinking feeling in his stomach. It couldn’t be just the fact their reflections told him that Dean had completely turned toward him, surely examining him in that carefully neutral way Sam always thought had much more in common with a dog ready to take up a trail.

He inhaled and let his head loll to the side, feigning surprise at Dean’s inquisitive look. “What?”

“I could ask you that,” Dean said. “What’s that supposed to mean, I was different?”

Sam gave a marginal shrug. “Nothing, really. Baked beans sound good.”

What Sam had hoped would throw Dean off his track only served to produce an intense frown on Dean’s face.

“Bullshit, Sam!”

As enraged as Dean now jumped up, as dramatically Sam felt his own limbs become numb – as if all the energy Dean put into his outburst was directly withdrawn from Sam’s body.

“Look, Dean…” Sam heaved himself up a little, attempting to sit up straight although the heavy lead of same-old-same-old dragged him to the floor. God, how he hadn’t missed this. “It’s not you, it’s only, like, in general. How we live when we’re, well, _not_ hunting. Like here, right now.”

“So what about it?” Dean growled, backing up against the kitchen counter. Why the fuck was it necessary to put an even greater distance between us? Sam wondered.

“I don’t know,” Sam said, gesturing to vaguely outline something he could not remotely put his finger on. “I…, well, we deserve better, I think,” he tried.

Dean shook his head. “You want a five star hotel? Room service? What, Sammy?”

The suggestions had sounded so ridiculous that Sam’s mind was briefly stuck in a loop that had them both lounging around in bathrobes while a waiter in a tux served them dinner from silver plates.

“Of course not.” Sam looked away. He could bite back what was on the tip of his tongue. It would be so much better if he did. “I gave up my life, a great woman. Let you drag me into this. Again.”

Yeah, it would have been better not to say it, Sam reckoned when he caught Dean’s eye. The anger that had already announced itself earlier had now manifested in every inch of his brother’s demeanor.

“I gave up a home,” Sam added for good measure. It was too late now anyway, and Dean was preparing for a fatal blow, if the eyes narrowed to slits were any indication. Gritting his teeth, Sam steeled himself.

“Well, _excuse me_ when I can’t work up a lot of energy for a homely atmosphere,” Dean spat. “You know, when there’s a friend dead in Purgatory, Bobby double dead, and not to forget _a brother_ who couldn’t have cared less that I was stuck in the outer circle of hell!”

Sam cringed with embarrassment. This was even worse than he had anticipated. “Dean, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…”

“What do you want?” Dean continued ranting, his voice booming through the cabin. “Should I bake you cookies? You miss the tablecloth? Sorry that I’m a bit rusty on the etiquette. Comes with the environment last year!”

Fighting against the urge to just give in, Sam did his best to take Dean’s words as the defense mechanism they clearly were. “I want something that feels different from what our father offered us,” he explained. “If it involves cookies? I doubt it, but I learned that there is more. Hell, Dean, you _know_ that there is more! You also had that once!”

“Don’t you dare start with Lisa!” Dean shouted.

“I won’t – if you admit that our kind of life strips away our humanity!”

In one fluid motion, Dean rammed a kitchen knife into the cutting board. “Of course it does!”

The flash of adrenaline that had automatically electrified each cell in Sam the moment Dean had grabbed the knife died down. “Damn it, Dean! Relax, will you?” Sam growled, but Dean deflated only marginally.

“You want to leave again? Is that it?” The stance was the same, only the voice carried none of the energy from before.

“Hell, no!” Sam waved for Dean to leave his refuge in the kitchen, but he remained poised where he was. _Typical_ , “It’s just...” Sam sighed. “We sit, stare at the TV, mutter a goodnight, that’s all.”

“What did you expect?” Dean asked. “You wanna share your hopes and fears? Would be quite the dramatic all-nighter, wouldn’t it?”

“No need to become sarcastic,” Sam started, but Dean had obviously found something that gave him more confidence than the kitchen unit he was leaning on.

“No, no, wait! We could throw some ball in the yard. Or what about a real hobby? Arts and crafts!  That would be great!”

Sam glowered with what he hoped was enough authority to make Dean stop. “Look, Dean, I made my own choice, okay? To take up hunting again, to return to this kind of life. I just… I don’t know.”

His shoulders sagged and he felt Dean’s eyes on him like an extra weight. _God, I’m pathetic,_ Sam thought, and the sympathetic look that Dean now gave him made this impression ten times worse. How had this all started anyway? Because of some fricking ravioli?

“It takes some time getting used to this again,” Dean said softly. “I remember that. There’s nothing in this life of ours that can take her place.”

Sam snorted and examined the leather he was sitting on. Torn, dull, and the padding underneath pressed to a brick. The comfort was gone, what remained was barely upheld functionality.

He threw a quick look at Dean, who had started rummaging around in the sink, his back turned to Sam. Going on with their routines had always been a great way out of anything remotely emotional, and Dean’s back spoke volumes about his decision to end their discussion.

Sam could not shake the impression that he was alone in the room. Which was crazy, because he wasn’t, right? If he compared this odd feeling of loneliness to before, though, it resembled a lot the clawing at his insides that had made him feel hollow the entire evening.

But how was that possible? Dean was finally there!

Sam took in the forbidding back of his brother once more and then turned toward the TV again. There was no doubt why.

Dean was an island. Had always been – out of necessity and also because he wanted it. Sometimes, and just for a moment, there had also been a place for Sam on that island. Few and far between were those events, and they had mostly been interrupted by something as insignificant as an apocalypse.

Dean opened the tap and the running water produced a smile on Sam’s face. Yup, definitely an island. And it fit that for most of their lives, they had struggled against being drowned in the mess they made.

The tap was being closed and footsteps approached.

“Wanna watch a movie?” Dean asked, but Sam’s train of thought on their options was interrupted by something so bewildering that he forgot to breathe for a second – because for not much longer did Dean’s hands rest on Sam’s shoulders and give a gentle squeeze before they disappeared again, leaving more warmth than they should have been able to in that short amount of time.

Dean circled the couch to collect the bowls and the spoons, and after he had given them a short rinse in the sink, he returned to plunk down next to Sam. A fraction of an inch away, as so often in the previous years.

“There’s a Segal flick on tonight,” Dean said while simultaneously reaching for the remote that lay buried in a gap of the couch. He switched on the TV and the room was filled with the inane chatter of a laundry detergent commercial.

Tuning out the sounds, Sam desperately held on to the moment that had biefly interrupted his journey into the circle of self-doubt and accusations he knew so well, and he mentally traced the outline of Dean’s fingers on his shoulders.

There was a way out of the isolation and it was so easy that it was almost laughable. No matter what the circumstances were, how stale the food or how ratty the blankets, all of that was insignificant because the old Dean still existed. Buried somewhere under all the efficient killing and the silence, he was the brother who had comforted Sam and shown him that he was there for him – with a hug, a ruffle of Sam’s hair, or a shoulder squeezed against him when there was no real need. _That_ was home. 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

Dean shoved the beans back into the cabinet and instead snatched a granola bar and dipped it into the jar of peanut butter.

He took a bite. No, definitely not a good idea for breakfast.

Out of the corner of his eye he could see Sam sitting on the bottom bunk, hunched over his laptop.

 _And I’m definitely not gonna ask him if he wants anything,_ Dean thought to himself and faced the counter again while he nibbled on the bar. _Bitching about perfectly fine ravioli like some wannabe gourmet, and all because of what?_

With his free hand, Dean fiddled with the knife that was stuck in the wooden board, and there was the impulse to throw it, just to see if he would hit his target, for example, let’s say, the stupid antlers on the wall or the mattress in that upper bunk.

Dean dunked the bar in again, and part of it ripped off and got stuck in the creamy goo. That would rile Sam up and it served him damn right.

The electric kettle switched off and Dean poured water into the mug, watching the coffee crystals dissolve while suppressing the urge to prepare another one. Sam could get his own.

 _I’ll give you ‘different’,_ Dean cursed inwardly, took another bite of the bar, chewed, and stirred his coffee, the spoon clinking against the cheap porcelain too loudly. Ting, ting, grating his ear, frazzling his nerves and fuck! – this just wasn’t right, this wasn’t how things were supposed to be!

 _Damn you, Sam!_ Defeated, Dean stuffed the rest of the bar into his mouth, got out a second mug, added two spoons full of coffee, the rest of the water and then it was the same old picture of two steaming cups signaling the start of a day of more boredom, heroic deeds or an early death. That was how things had always been.

 _We get along like before, so what’s the problem?_ Dean wondered. And what the hell did Sam mean when he said that they deserved better? That pile of bullshit they had to deal with should have got them a goddamn Nobel Prize, or tons of money, or at least a good night’s sleep, but they had none of it, so what? They at least had each other, hadn’t they?

Well, unless Sam decided to run off again. Dean blinked, accelerating his stirring until some of the coffee splashed over. No, Sam wouldn’t take off without giving any notice. He had said he wouldn’t.

“Want coffee?” Dean asked and Sam looked up.

“Sure.” Sam put away the laptop and approached on cue. “Thanks.”

When Dean handed over the mug, Sam cracked one of his stupid, stupid smiles. Dean felt the the corner of his mouth twitch in return and the smile continued, almost prompting Dean to make a silly comment to prolong it a little. Yet the joke would fall flat anyway, or worse, backfire. Damn, that kid was hard to entertain, Dean thought. Worth every try, though.

He opened his mouth, but knitted eyebrows stopped him dead in his tracks.

“So, you think about it?” Sam asked.

“What?” Dean tried to grasp the sudden change of topic.

“What I said last night.”

 _That,_ of course. Dean looked at the door, counting the steps he would need to reach it, provided he could get that bull of a brother out of the way. That meant leaving the coffee behind, though, which was the crappiest option imaginable.

“Look, man,” Dean started and then took a sip, burning his tongue but refusing to bat an eyelid. There had to be something that would lead Sam away from this discussion. “We trust each other with our lives, don’t we?”

Sam shrugged. “Of course. So?”

“You don’t have to ask, you don’t have to hold back,” Dean went on, unsure where he was headed. “Things are just… natural.” It hadn’t done the trick. Sam’s eyes were as skeptical as before. “I mean, that’s more than a lot of people have,” Dean added.

“Yeah, sure, but that’s not what I meant yesterday.” Sam seemed to search for words. “It’s the… small things.”

“Small things?”

“Like, well, gestures and… and you know…”

Obviously at a loss as well, Sam fell silent and Dean wasn’t quite sure but it looked like Sam was waiting for _him_ to help out.

“So what do you want me to do? Put a fortune cookie in your lunch bag?” Dean offered and received an accusing glare in return – the best invitation to expand the joke. “Though I guess the fortune cookie would probably be cursed, you see,” Dean said. “With our luck…”

Sam rolled his eyes. “You’re not taking this seriously.”

 _As always,_ Dean finished inwardly. “No, no, I am!” he protested and wished the words had really sounded like it.

“Okay, you know what? Forget it.” Sam turned around and put the coffee on the table, retrieved his laptop and sat down on the chair right in front of Dean, back turned to him, and from what was visible on the screen, Sam was once more scanning hotels and credit card information for a trace of Kevin.

“What about we find us a case?” Dean asked, but Sam just grunted noncommittally.

A job, yeah, that would be the solution, Dean thought to himself. Something to get them out of the cabin and on the road, God, he really needed to do something, this here was…

Dean stopped. Yeah, maybe Sam was right, their life sucked majorly.

Being stuck in a dump like this with nothing but trees around while Kevin was gone with the demon tablet? The chance that Crowley had gotten his hands on him in the meanwhile? Things were possibly moving out of the frying pan and into the fire way more quickly than anyone anticipated, but all they could do was sit on their asses and do research!

Dean sighed. This wasn’t Sam’s fault, although his whining about their situation also didn’t help. But Sam hadn’t really complained, had he? Just mentioned that he had a fucked-up older brother, that’s all.

Looking down on Sam’s unusually small form, Dean wondered how it was possible to fold that body in all the constricting furniture the world shoved in their way. It was a miracle Sam could still stand straight, as much as he had to bend over.

 _It’s a miracle we both aren’t crawling rather than walking,_ Dean corrected himself and inclined his head to loosen a crick in his neck.

“Sam, I’m sorry. It’s just… after Purgatory…” Dean said and Sam’s shoulders tensed immediately. Automatically, Dean’s hands shot out and it took a moment for Dean to process that he was resting his hands on Sam’s shoulders like some wacko faith healer, but that _was_ a gesture, wasn’t it? He had done it the evening before and he dimly recalled that it had worked to calm Sam down.

Sam exhaled. “I get it that it changed you. I do. But it wouldn’t hurt to accept that we’re both humans and not… killing machines. We were closer once.”

Dean’s hands understood this as a signal to let go. He took a couple of steps to position himself next to Sam, looking down on him again, yet his attempt to win something like the upper hand in the conversation was thwarted immediately.

 _Those fricking eyes!_ Dean swore inwardly when Sam glanced up at him. _How dare he use that cheap trick on me?_

“We were kids,” Dean said. He stubbornly held Sam’s gaze despite the fact that it made his already feeble resolve crumble like a thin cookie.

“So what?” Sam asked, pushing the chair and interlacing his hands behind his head. “You remember that time when Dad left us in that house, all drafty, floorboards creaking and the whole thing packed full of ghosts?”

Dean smiled. They had barricaded themselves in in an old safe where the iron would keep the nasties away. The little salt they had, they put in the crack of the door.

Counting back, Dean assumed that he must have been around twelve. The house had been one of Dad’s more or less brilliant ideas to make real hunters of them, just by throwing them in at the deep end to see how they coped.

A small jar of salt was all he had given them, telling them that they needed to squat in the house to save money while he would be on a hunt for a day. Then the night came and with it the ghosts, wandering about each room, and all of them nasty-looking, pockmarked specters that had scared the hell out of Dean.

There had been no iron poker, nothing remotely helpful in such circumstances, and Dean vividly remembered the panic that had sent him running through the house, up and down with Sam in tow, and meeting only barred doors and windows.

 _Get Sam to safety_ had been his mantra and he didn’t know how he had managed to crack the old safe they found in the drawing room, it had almost happened in a trance.

And then they had watched the ghosts float by, and studying them had just supported one conclusion: The spirits were just as trapped as them. They were desperate to move on, which was also the reason they roamed the house.

What kept them in had been outside – where Dad had dealt with it that night.

Yet if the ghosts hadn’t been friendly, it wouldn’t have made much of a difference. Huddled together, Dean had felt secure. Sam was with him and whatever happened, they would live through it together.

But that was a long time ago.

“You were just the girl you’re today,” Dean joked and caught himself before he did something like casually muss up Sam’s hair. “But now you also look like one.”

Sam frowned, refusing to acknowledge what was clearly a perfectly fitting joke to end a conversation that was as useful as a hole in the head. With an encouraging waggle of his eyebrows, Dean tried to tickle out at least a tiny smile, but Sam just zoned in on the laptop again, doing God knows what.

“I’ll read the… I’ll watch the local news,” Dean announced and returned to the couch that almost felt like it had become some sort of additional limb. Better than the bunk bed, though, that dusty piece of crap!

Cursing the fact that he was sitting in Sam’s direct view, Dean closed off his face and concentrated on the news anchor. There had been a murder two towns away, but it didn’t appear to be suspicious – in contrast to him, it seemed, because Sam was watching him.

Dean shuffled to the side to stop himself from noticing the peeks Sam sneaked regularly. That little pain in the ass wouldn’t let go of the subject, no doubt about it, and the next time he brought it up, it was better to have something up the sleeve to fling back at him. Because Sam was way out of line here. Mexican border out of line.

Of course they had changed! But only gradually and because they were getting older, having new experiences, spending some time apart, let’s say, in fucking Purgatory! And the natural result was that things cooled off a little! What did Sam expect?

Of course there had been other people. Benny had been close. And Cas.

Dean breathed in sharply. Thinking of Cas was not a good place. No, he had to leave it immediately, but the air didn’t want to escape his lungs and his eyes stung while twitching fingers reached out to … nothing. There was no friend any longer and there wouldn’t be one ever again. Not someone like Cas.

Squeezing his eyes shut before ripping them open again and forcing himself to face reality, Dean violently suppressed the unwanted images. Dwelling on failure wouldn’t help, and the only way out was by not letting anyone down again, despite the fact that there was barely anyone left to protect.

What the fuck had happened? Dean sniffed inconspicuously, evening out his breathing with some difficulty. Why couldn’t people just stop dying around him?

The noise of a chair being pushed over the floorboards roused him from his thoughts, and Sam’s steps approached so quickly that Dean only just achieved an air of bored relaxation before he turned his head.

“Get up, Dean,” Sam commanded.

Bewildered, Dean complied. “Dude, what’s…?”

Before he could add anything, though, Sam bridged the gap between them and enfolded Dean in an embrace so fierce that Dean’s instincts briefly categorized it as an attack before responding correctly. Mimicking Sam’s movements, he clutched his brother’s upper body, expecting the sudden display of affection to be over soon, but Sam obviously wasn’t aware of the appropriate length of time for a manly hug, or he chose to ignore it, Dean didn’t know, just that he couldn’t escape the chains that were his brother’s arms and after a while, he didn’t want to anymore.

So he relaxed his grip a little and closed his eyes, feeling Sam’s chest heaving against his and Sam’s hair tickling his face, and Sam was right, it was the little things that made up their world: the puffs of breath on his ear and the muscles working under his fingers, both awkward and brilliant at the same time because all of it showed that Sam was really there and not a distant memory. He was the smell of girly shower gel, the feel of cotton, all framed by unyielding biceps.

“I’m so glad you’re back,” Sam rasped, and then the contact was gone, leaving Dean swaying a little.

He blinked. “Okay.”

There would surely be some kind of explanation now, Dean expected when Sam turned around and walked to the kitchen counter.

“You want bacon and eggs?”

No explanation then. Wiping the still somehow vacant look from his face, Dean tried to pull himself together.

“Yes, I…” he cleared his throat, “thanks.”

Shaking his head to himself, he sat down on the couch again. Whatever Sam was up to, if it involved bacon and eggs, it was worth enduring unexpected outbreaks of sappiness. Besides, a hug couldn’t hurt, now could it?

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, a big hug for daydreamernv, who decided to walk this slow and winding path with me!


	3. Chapter 3

Sam looked up from his laptop and out the window to get a glimpse of the sun that was still standing relatively high in the sky, reflecting the red and orange of the trees. It would be great to go outside for a walk, or better yet, a jog. Breathe in some fresh air.

He could not leave, though. Not until he was sure that he had not accidentally made things worse instead of better by what he had done this morning. But, oddly enough, Dean seemed unperturbed, had not drunk more than usual – which was still too much – and was now seated on the couch as if he were occupying a throne.

Another peek and yup, he was still there, undoubtedly waiting for the news to end and that infernal telenovela to start.

So surprisingly everything was normal – who would have thought? – and Sam resorted to staring at his laptop again. Perhaps he had overreacted? Imagined it all and made accusations where there was no problem? Because Dean had taken being subjected to intense hugging extraordinarily well.

 _Which is a good sign, isn’t it?_ Sam thought to himself and smiled, keeping half an eye on his brother again.

“If you’re not planning on doing any research, watch a show, okay?” Dean said without turning his head. “Or read a damn book. Just stop _that_!”

Sam ducked his head. He should have known that Dean would be aware of someone watching – he had lived under surveillance for an entire year after all!

“I’m sorry,” Sam said. He closed the laptop and went over to the couch to sit down next to Dean. It was difficult to calculate the distance correctly, but he managed to bump into Dean’s leg and shoulder with his own just so, eliminating the gap that had widened steadily over the years.

Dean turned down the corners of his mouth and raised his eyebrows, an expression that could mean almost anything

“What?” Sam asked and Dean switched the program from a Mexican soap opera to a DIY channel.

“Nothing, just some good old-fashioned craftsmanship,” Dean answered, and, as if he was confirming his own statement, Dean nodded at the TV where two middle-aged men were building shelves. It took just a couple of minutes until Sam wished for the excessively made-up cast of the telenovela to return because, hell, how many ways were there to sandpaper the surface of wood?

This was Dean’s payback, no doubt. So obviously there was no smoothing over that morning – at least not as professionally as the two on TV managed the smoothing down part.  

Which grit size was best for which step in the work process? How to treat different kinds of wood? Sam blinked, but no amount of focusing on the screen could prevent his eyelids from becoming heavy and his vision from blurring.

Dean punched his shoulder.

“Dude,” Sam croaked weakly, straining against the fist that wouldn’t leave. “That’s the most boring…”

Sam paused. It hadn’t been a punch at all and resting against his shoulder was Dean’s head. Tentatively, Sam raised his shoulder but could only elicit a quiet snoring.

 _Okay, buddy, you’re out so the remote’s mine,_ Sam decided and carefully lifted his arm, flexing his shoulder as much as possible to smuggle his arm past Dean’s head and down his side. Dean had surely put the remote behind his elbow – just to make sure it couldn’t be snatched away. Bingo! Sam thought while he fished it from its hiding place between Dean’s arm and the backrest.

Dean’s head had slid down a bit during the whole maneuver and weighed heavily on Sam’s chest, blocking the counter movement and fixing them in their current position – which was a small price to pay for the end of the shelf-building lesson. Gratefully, Sam switched back to the previous channel, looking forward to a chance of brushing up on his Spanish.

With the excited chatter, Dean’s snoring became more pronounced and Sam chuckled lightly. One could count on the things that calmed Dean down: alcohol, random pickups in bars and godawful TV. And not to forget greasy food.

Pulling Dean a bit closer so that they both sat more comfortably, Sam wondered at how strangely helpless Dean looked in this position. When they were younger they had watched TV a lot like that, Dean holding him close when the movie became too gory or sleep took over.

 _But why not reverse the roles now and then?_ Or change things? Those damn rules Dean still adhered to, and the endless discussions his pig-headedness always caused… Why couldn’t he revisit decisions? Or accept the fact that sometimes it was necessary to express one’s happiness when something extraordinary had happened – like, let’s say, a brother returned from fucking Purgatory!

 _It’s my damn right!_ Sam thought and closed his eyes, tuning out the cacophony of voices on TV until he merely heard Dean’s regular breathing and felt his own chest expand. Over time, the initial alternating rhythm became a simultaneous pattern of inhaling and exhaling. _Inhale. Exhale..._

A sharp intake of breath interrupted the soothing background noise, and just as sudden, the warm weight on Sam’s chest was gone. Bewildered, he struggled to propel his senses into a state of complete wakefulness. Dean did not have such problems, it seemed, as he had shot up from the couch, adopting a pose that lingered between attack and retreat. Briefly, Sam debated the option to close his eyes again because everything in Dean’s demeanor screamed _drama_.

“Something wrong?” Sam asked instead and then cleared his throat and stretched himself – maybe a bit too luxuriously, he reckoned, and his next instinct was to catalogue the whereabouts of the weapons in the cabin.

“Did we just take a nap _like that_?” Dean snarled. Sam was now convinced he needed something to defend himself because going by the glare, Dean would kill him any second. Quickly, he straightened.

“Like what?” Sam asked.

The threat in Dean’s stance made way for a hint of discomfort. “You know how, all…” He gestured weakly. “Like _that_! You know what I mean!”

“Dean, it’s no big deal, I…”

Sam’s mouth snapped shut when Dean’s eyes narrowed, a prelude to a scathing comment or another accusation, Sam thought, but instead Dean turned around. “I need fresh air.”

The urge to follow his brother died down almost immediately when the well-known sounds of splitting wood reached Sam. Great, cleaving logs meant that Dean at least wouldn’t drive to the nearest seedy joint to work off his anger.

Dismissing the images that surfaced at that notion, Sam gave the soap opera another chance, but the continual thumping from the outside was too erratic to let him concentrate and it cut through the babbling on TV just as effectively as if it had lodged itself like a thorn in Sam’s mind.

“What the fuck!” Sam shouted and switched off the TV, but the thud, thud, thud from outside continued hammering in the fact that _nothing_ was right and no amount of hugs and well-meant words could change the fact that Dean was different and he himself was different and basically, everyone had let Dean down and he would never be the same again.

 _I let him down,_ Sam thought and gritted his teeth.

He should have searched for his brother. He knew it, Dean sure as hell knew it – their agreement on how to go on in case one of them died notwithstanding!

Angrily, Sam pushed himself off the couch and marched to the door, consciously venting some of his fury. When he grabbed the handle he took a deep breath.

 _There’s a way back to the kind of family we were,_ he assured himself, but the lump that had formed in his throat refused to go away. With more conviction than he felt, he opened the door and prepared to speak, but then reconsidered his plan when Dean came into view.

Although Sam was sure Dean knew he was being watched, he unerringly continued what he was doing: positioning the wood, swinging the axe and then splitting the log with so much force that the metal got stuck in the base. While pulling the axe out it looked like Dean was tearing a muscle, but he didn’t pause and instead just added another log, no matter how out of breath he was. Occasionally, Dean interrupted his work, but only to pile up the wood like a wall between himself and the cabin.

Sam leaned against the door frame when the endless cycle of thud-and-crash began anew. Thinking of a way to break it, he came away empty-handed, yet going inside wasn’t an option either because it meant leaving Dean alone with whatever he was exorcising by that useless display of pure force.

The stony face gave nothing away and Sam made an attempt to transfer the scene in front of him to what Dean had so hesitantly revealed about Purgatory. It had to have been quite similar to this here: tall trees, no sign of civilization, but without the beginning colors of autumn – or pretty much without any color. It fit perfectly, actually, with Dean once more hacking his way through all the monsters that had crossed his path when he had been alive.

Perhaps Dean had been right and this was all they had been trained to do. Everything else was second-rate, if they were honest.

 _And Amelia?_ Sam traced back the sentiment that, the day before, had brought him to think about his life in the first place, but everything had become indistinct somehow. One thing was clear, though. Whatever Amelia and he had had, it wouldn’t have worked out in the end. Something – and there was always something, with teeth, claws or both – would have come up and it would have been impossible to ignore the unpleasant reality it entailed anymore.

This was his life.

Sam squinted his eyes against the light of the sinking sun to get a better view of the force of nature that was his brother. Dean would go on like that until it was pitch black. Hell, he could go on all night if necessary. Smiling to himself, Sam watched the spectacle, and very slowly the tension eased.

Only Dean could have survived Purgatory for a year. No one else could have pulled off such a feat, and if Dean really was the stronger one, then showing something like an occasional gesture of sympathy wouldn’t kill him, would it? There was a way to coax him out of the shell he had created for himself, Sam was sure of it.

It was dusky when Dean finally stopped the chopping to direct his attention to finishing the pile. Sam went inside and grabbed a beer from the fridge before he went out again, knowing that Dean would sit on the stairs to admire what still could be seen of his work in the increasing shadows.

“Beer?” Sam asked. Dean just nodded, lifting his hand to accept the bottle.

This was a sign of reconciliation, right? Before he thought too much about it, Sam descended some stairs and then sat down next to Dean, shoulder and leg bumping into Dean’s like before on the couch. Even in the fading light Sam could see Dean’s jaw working.

Facing the trees again, Sam took a sip and kept his mouth shut. Nothing good would come from trying to convince Dean. There was no other choice but to wait out whatever huff he was in because that’s what they had always done. Enduring those infuriatingly long silences and sprinkling them with the occasional joke to soften the blow that would ultimately follow.

“I can’t do that,” Dean said and the beer in Sam’s mouth became unbearably difficult to swallow. There it was, the expected punch in the guts, and it had not even been garnished with light teasing or some other preliminaries.

“What?” Sam asked, clutching his beer like a lifeline but keeping his voice steady. Being out of practice when it came to reasoning with Dean didn’t mean that he would cave in the first time. “What’s so complicated?”

“You know damn well what I mean!” Dean growled. “I’ve got no fucking idea what you _want_ , Sam!”

“I dunno, man! What about we exchange some _nice_ words, huh?” Sam suggested. “Or allow a bit of physical proximity, like, when we’re _not_ in mortal danger?”

Dean’s feet started shuffling on the wood of the stairs. “But that’s not what we are.”

“Who cares?” Sam shot back immediately. The seconds ticked by, becoming minutes eventually, and apart from the sound of some animal rustling in the underbrush and the occasional screeching of an owl, there was nothing but a suffocating silence that meant that Dean had put a mental stop to the argument.

Sam risked a peek to the side and, to his surprise, found Dean deep in thought without even a hint of a frown showing.

“We’re grown men, Sam,” Dean said, addressing the stairs. “We’re hunters.”

There was no inflection in the voice, defeat rendering it a mere caricature of its usual force. Sam could almost taste his victory and it took a great effort not to gloat at least a tiny bit. Instead, he lifted his arm and put it around Dean’s shoulders, pulling him close like he had done on the couch. Watching out for possible signs of fight or flight, Sam felt the muscles tense and Dean’s posture go rigid for a moment, but then they slackened and Dean exhaled.

“There you go,” Sam praised him mockingly before letting go. “Good job, jerk.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Dean continued staring ahead, a little smile on his lips, “bitch.”

Sam laughed out loud and got up. Still chuckling, he climbed the stairs to the entrance.

“Idjit,” he heard Dean grunt.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so such, daydreamernv, for continuing this super slow ride with me!


	4. Chapter 4

The morning mist was still creeping through the woods and chilling Dean’s hands, but the mug of coffee he held warmed them enough so that he could stay in the doorway and pretend to be interested in something where there was absolutely nothing.

Better than doing something inside the cabin, though.

Dean pinched his lips together and tried to shed the sensation of being under close scrutiny, but he felt the stare sticking to his neck like one of those spider webs that latched onto you when you needed it the least. In a cellar with a ghost on your heels, for example. God, how he totally could do without those!

Slowly, he turned his head and raised an eyebrow at Sam, but all he got in return was a smile. And not just any smile, but _that_ smile, just like it had been _that_ laugh the previous evening.

He had almost forgotten how it sounded: that carefree open laugh. It felt like half an eternity since he had last heard it and nowadays, when Sam huffed out one of his unconvincing laughs that spoke of all the shit they had been through, it was clear that the old times were nothing but a faint memory.

 _That laugh shouldn’t exist anymore,_ Dean decided and turned his head away. Sam had dug it out from God knows where, and that bottomless pit was exactly where it would vanish again when their life finally managed to fuck Sam over full force.  

Dean leaned against the doorframe and finished his coffee, hoping for a bit of morning sun. Behind him, Sam was walking through the cabin and then it sounded as if he sat down. _Scratch that, he definitely returned to the table for his morning raid of the papers,_ Dean thought to himself, and relaxed just slightly.

At least this time there wouldn’t be any sneaking up and demanding another show of good will – those outbreaks that had to come from where that damn smile had sprung from, but in contrast to it, they were plain annoying. And wrong!

Because that wasn’t Sam’s damn job! The roles were assigned differently, no matter how often Sam questioned them. Life and, not to forget, Dad had made sure that Dean knew who he had to look after.

 _And what kind of loser am I getting all cuddly when I get hugged by my brother?_ Dean looked into the mug and tilted it a little to make the rest of the coffee flow. It was not more than a drip, no use trying to get another sip out of it.

 _Coffee!_ How he had missed that in Purgatory. _And pie._ He hadn’t been hungry, not really, it had just been that incessant craving for something that he couldn’t have. Like a ray of sunshine. Or a friendly touch instead of the bark of a tree trunk at his back.

Yeah, that had to be it, Dean thought, wincing in embarrassment. He was so touch deprived that he didn’t care anymore where the attention came from, similar to the moment when he had found Cas at that river and all but pawed him. The poor bastard.

Dean shook his head, squashing the guilt that threatened to gnaw at his conscience. He wouldn’t fail, not again, and if a year of forced abstinence turned him into some kind of contact starved wuss, he’d better get laid on a regular basis – to take the edge off and make himself ready for battle.

He pushed himself off the doorframe and walked inside. Sam was reading and scrolling, with his brows sometimes beginning their little dance of recognition or discovery, but then they stilled and the fingers became active again.

Dean knew he was staring but continued nonetheless, expecting Sam to be immersed as much in his work as he usually was at this time of the day, so when Sam looked up and caught Dean’s eye, all Dean could do was casually place his mug in the sink and try to keep his fingers from fidgeting.

“I could use a workout, you know?” Sam said, and Dean needed a moment to process the new topic.

“You wanna go for a run?” he asked.

“I rather thought about some hand-to-hand combat,” Sam replied and, when Dean didn’t react immediately, he got up and aimed for the open cupboard next to Dean to grab the last cracker in the bowl. “Later, you know? I need to get in shape again.”

A derogatory remark was already on the tip of Dean’s tongue, but he swallowed it. He couldn’t quite say why he was so reluctant, normally he would swoop down on Sam’s dignity like a hawk on a rabbit.

But this _is_ normal, Dean maintained and, with some effort, gave Sam his trademark grin. “Yeah, sure, we can do that,” he said with as much of a wolfish leer as he could muster. “Kick your ass a bit? I’m all in.”

He held Sam’s gaze and forcefully dismissed the fact that Sam was so damn _close_. Of course this was completely in the range of what their interactions had been back in the day – Sam had been right about that – but did that mean that he _always_ had to be so fucking _near_?

Dean quelled the urge to put his hand on Sam’s shoulder and squeeze it and, instead, he turned around to snatch two plates from the countertop. Briefly wondering where to put them, he finally remembered the cabinet with the dishes. Behind his back, he heard Sam returning to the table, probably wondering what the hell Dean was up to as they were only using the two plates, washing them up and grabbing them from the countertop again after they had dried – or even before that.

After Dean had put away the dishes, he still felt the urge to do something. The idea of another round of axe swinging popped up, but his arms still protested from the treatment they had received the day before, so he dismissed the notion, especially as his eyes fell on the last orange that had rolled behind a block of knives.

Dean reached for the smallest knife and stripped the orange of its peel, making sure he scratched off as much of the white fiber as possible. Satisfied, he put his knife away and dug his thumbs into the top of the orange to pull it apart, just to have a heavy dose of juice hit his eyes in the process.

“Son of a bitch!” Dean cursed and blindly groped for the plate he had just put away. He placed the slices on it and then all but threw the plate on the table where it landed with loud clattering.

“The hell, dude!” Sam shouted and pushed books and papers away. “Watch out where you put your food!”

“Do I look like I eat oranges?” Dean asked, the words more like an automatic accusation than anything because going by Sam’s completely baffled look, something was off. And it slowly dawned on Dean, understanding and mortification combining in the most awkward way possible because no way had he just peeled an orange to feed Sam with it like he was a fucking five-year-old!

Sam was staring at him with the same dumbfounded expression that Dean knew he himself was exhibiting and Dean’s brain was desperately scanning for ways to save a tiny bit of his dignity.

“It’s the last one. I thought you might wanna have it,” Dean said and wondered what was wrong with his head when all he could come up with was a lame explanation like that. Quickly, he turned around.

“Wow, that’s…” he heard Sam say, but Dean was not going down that road again, hell no, the day before had had enough chick flick moments for a month.

“As I said, it’s the last one, so I’m gonna drive to the village,” he interjected and grabbed the car keys. While feeling for his phone in his jacket he was already on the way out, not looking back at Sam who was surely watching him with that slightly haughty air of mild consternation – a look someone should definitely punch him in the face for once in a while.

Dean fired up the engine as if  he was being chased by an entire nest of vampires and only when he nearly hit a tree did he slow down to a less bumper-demanding way of driving.

Road rage felt good, though. Cleared the mind. Some music could do the trick as well, Dean thought to himself, and played Metallica at a volume that made his ears ring, but when the gas station came into view, the unease that had continued to simmer in his guts was still there, urging him on.

What about the supermarket forty miles down the road? Stocking up on a variety of ingredients wouldn’t hurt, let alone getting more of the fresh stuff, more oranges…

Dean clenched his teeth. He was really losing it, no doubt. There was no reason whatsoever for the thought of fruit to throw him off track like that! What on earth was making him so damn uneasy?

The feeling stayed, though. It clung to him like a store detective while Dean was walking along the aisles of the small supermarket although the only one really watching him was the girl at the checkout. Usually there were guys in the shop but she had to be a replacement or something, and a helluva great one at that!

Dean did his best to flirt a little because the look she had thrown him had definitely not been one you’d give a potential shoplifter. He went through the motions and even got her number, but when she suggested arranging a date on the spot, he weaseled his way out of it.

 _Which is the ultimate proof that I need to see a shrink!_ he admonished himself inwardly when he plunked into the car again. Frustrated, he hit the wheel. The thought of a backseat full of fruit in various forms – even liquid! – _shouldn’t_ create a feeling of accomplishment, but heck, things were messed up, so he’d better take them as they were or they would drive him nuts for sure!

Resolutely, he switched on the music again and exchanged the tape for Led Zeppelin’s Celebration Day. The secret was not to dig too deep into stuff that played mind games with him – that, and the two bottles of scotch he stopped for on his way back to the cabin.

Yeah, a relaxing day with two glasses now, a microwave lasagna afterward and, come evening, the rest of the bottle. His mood noticeably improving each mile he drove, he had almost reached what felt like standard cheerfulness when the whole thing took an anticlimactic turn the moment the cabin appeared – and with it Sam on the front stairs.

Before Dean could think of what exactly irritated him, Sam hurried toward the car and grabbed two of the bags on the backseat.

“Jeez, you bought kiwis?” Sam peeked into the other bag. “And grapefruit?”

“Have your merry way with them, sourpuss,” Dean quipped from inside the car. _God, lame again,_ he reproached himself inwardly. But it seemed that Sam had made it a rule to smile at _everything_ lately.

“ _Bitter_ , Dean,” Sam retorted and added another smile.

“What?” Dean asked, but Sam was already gone. Sure, the _grapefruit_.

Leaning back in his seat, Dean contemplated the chances of Sam forgetting about him out of sheer joy over the damn groceries. Tending toward zero – that’s what the chances were, Dean decided and heaved himself out of the car. The last bag in his arm, he climbed the stairs to the porch and gave himself a mental shake before entering the cabin.

“Wanna start right now?” Sam shouted from where he was squatting in front of a cabinet.

“What?” Somehow Dean got the impression that this was all he had been saying lately. “You hungry?” he added.

“Don’t think you can bitch out now,” Sam said and got up. “I’ll shellack you, old man.”

 _Right! The workout…!_ Dean placed the bag on the counter, suddenly unable to carry its weight anymore. Immediately, Sam took over and stuffed its contents into the fridge and the cabinets. Just as effortlessly, he unbuttoned his shirt and shucked it off.

“What are you waiting for?” Sam asked, stepping out of his shoes while retreating into the living room space. He motioned Dean to come nearer. “Your pension?”

Overcoming his immobilization, Dean first eased off his jacket and shirt as if someone had activated slow motion, and, in even more measured movements, he bowed down to untie his boots. Somehow his body didn’t want to obey him, but his mind wasn’t of any help either as all it could muster up was some automatic reaction to the challenge.

 _Get ready to fight! Circle!_ it commanded, and only by and by could Dean access some higher functions to process what was going on. _Think!_ he ordered himself. Why was he so hesitant? This was just one of their usual sparring sessions, wasn’t it? But it was the first after an entire year, so taking it slow was the best option.

Yeah, he should hold back and try not to discourage Sam. Keep him at bay a bit.

Satisfied with the explanation he had found, Dean crooked a finger at his brother. “Bring it on,” he growled and easily blocked Sam’s first attack. With his senses honed by a year of almost continuous fighting, he didn’t have to do a lot more than step aside or deflect what could become a choke hold or a throw. Repeatedly, Sam struggled to his feet and charged again, obviously battling his growing frustration with the course of events. “Now who’s the old geezer?” Dean laughed, using Sam’s own momentum to push him to the floor. “You should’ve… woah…!”

Sam had spun in the air and Dean’s legs were pulled away from under him. With a last automatic movement, Dean broke his fall and kept his head from hitting the floor, but he needed too much time for it. The air whooshed out of him when Sam fully threw his fighting weight onto him, pinning Dean down. The pressure on his windpipe made him see stars for a moment.

“So can we begin already?” Sam panted. “Stop evading me, do you hear me?”

The pressure on his throat lessened and Dean gasped for air. “I’m not evading you! I’m trying to be supportive, you ass!”

“Bullshit!” Sam shouted. “Then show me what you’ve got!”

Dean didn’t need to be told twice because something about Sam straddling him was funny, and not in the good sense, and it needed to stop right away. Yet when Dean used his knee to throw Sam off, his brother was back in the fraction of a second, a giant octopus with wrestling moves of the painful kind. They were fighting in earnest right now, that much was true, but the fact that the leg scissors were meant to hurt and the grappling hands searched ways to outmaneuver practiced grips didn’t make them any less overwhelming.

 _I’m so… fucking… pathetic!_ Dean thought. He sought to escape Sam’s clutches with a powerful dig into Sam’s ribs and the momentary loosening of the grip made it possible to squirm free and crawl away. A firm hand caught his ankle.

“Time out!” Dean shouted and the hand let go again. Catching his breath, Dean pushed himself up but then sat back on his heels. Behind him, Sam’s wheezing was dying down and Dean heard him get up and steps came nearer, stopping eventually. Sam was most likely looking at him critically or reaching out with his hand to help him up, but Dean kept his focus on the worn wood of the floor.

“Come on, let’s whip up something for dinner,” Sam said.

Dean inhaled. Exhaled. Got up and marched straight to the kitchen – his reliable auto-pilot steering him where he had to be. “I need a drink,” Dean grunted and opened one of the bottles he had bought. He poured whiskey into a glass that was so old that it looked almost frosted, the liquid in it barely visible from the outside.

“It’s not even noon, Dean.”

Tearing his eyes from the glass, Dean huffed and downed half of its content. “Cheers.”

And there it was again – the hand that meant well but didn’t start anything but trouble lately. It gently touched down on Dean’s shoulder and squeezed it, causing a slight initial tension that immediately dissolved into something indescribably warm.

“What’s wrong?” Sam asked quietly.

“Nothing.” Dean turned around, regretting to lose the touch but it was about time he manned up. “It’s just all a bit… much,” he continued.

Sam looked curious, on the verge of asking a question before he let it be. The flicker of disappointment on his face was impossible to hide, though.

“It’s…” Dean started and then fell silent again. Like before, he had not the slightest clue what he was actually talking about. “Give me some time, okay?” he asked and hoped that this was ambivalent enough. With his empty hand, he grabbed an apple and threw it to Sam who caught it without looking. So much for being out of shape.

“Second portion of the day,” Dean said. “Served by the model brother.”

Sam shook his head, first eyeing the apple and then giving Dean a crooked grin.

Shrugging, Dean arched an eyebrow. “Suit yourself, Snow White.”

And there was that _damn laugh_ again.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cheers to daydreamernv, who didn't even let the sun stop her from betaing! You're the best!


	5. Chapter 5

Sam closed the laptop. Still no trace of Kevin, no sign of anything, not even demon activity!  It was as if everything had been put on hold just to annoy him personally.

Tapping an irregular rhythm with his fingers on the table but failing to distract himself enough to reduce his irritation, Sam leaned back and peered at Dean – on the couch, watching that hellish telenovela again, although there was a slight difference from the last time Sam had looked, namely that the glass in his hand was empty now.

Dean was holding up pretty well, just half a bottle the day before, half today – and it was already three in the afternoon. Sam huffed, putting an end to his ironic inner monologue.

“So Dean?” he started, waiting for a reaction that of course didn’t come. “You plan on giving it a break any time soon? You know, the drinking?”

Pouting, Dean held the empty glass in front of his face. “Nope.”

Sam took a deep breath. God, why did it always have to be one step forward, two steps back? The day before, in the morning, Dean had looked so relaxed: Standing with his coffee in the doorway, contemplating the trees or the morning mist, or whatever. Maybe that blank face had meant something completely different after all? Who could tell nowadays, when Purgatory had reduced Dean’s facial expressions to a minimum – as if he hadn’t needed them or was unaccustomed to using them anymore.

Sam’s eyes fell on the single kiwi that had survived the previous day’s fruit binge. Looking a little forlorn, it lay next to some empty beer bottles and it directly evoked images of that infamous orange peeling episode that Sam could still not wrap his head around. What the hell had that been about? And Dean's flight afterward, only to later add yet another Martha Stewart routine? Whatever it had signified, though, it hadn’t lasted. There was no sudden turn to all things domestic because even something as innocuous as a sparring session was too much.

But too much of _what_? Sam wondered. There was no way of telling what was going on Dean’s mind. It seemed that Purgatory had messed him up much more than had been obvious until then.

 _Well, great,_ Sam thought. This meant easing him into real life would be a real piece of work and a couple of half-assed attempts weren’t enough. Dean was resuming his rituals, and the drinking and mindless TV would surely be joined by hustling pool and picking up girls sometime soon. Yet before that happened, it couldn’t hurt to try giving the self-destructive routines a slightly different spin.

Sam waited until the end credits of the show started rolling before he got up and walked over to the couch. He sat down next to Dean, just a hint of a touch but closer than usual – and waited.

“Gimme the remote,” he said when Dean didn’t react. At least he didn’t bolt.

“No way,” Dean answered, but in his drunken stupor he had forgotten to hide it somewhere out of Sam’s reach. Effortlessly, Sam snatched it from Dean’s fingers and switched to the next channel, knowing what would await them there.

Instead of carpentry, there was a product presentation under way with one of the guys from the day before explaining how to varnish a multitude of surfaces.

“You’re kidding me, right?” Dean groaned.

“If we ever start refurbishing the cabin, that knowledge might come in handy,” Sam gave back.

Dean muttered something under his breath, but he was too drunk or too lazy to get up, it seemed. Sideway glances assured Sam that it was becoming more and more difficult for Dean to stay awake although he was trying his best. When his eyes drooped shut, he always jerked awake the next moment, blinking stubbornly. There was only so much Dean could do, though, because the alcohol also played a significant part, almost visibly pulling his conscious mind toward sleep.

Sam was about to laugh out loud when the combined onslaught of the program and the booze took its toll and Dean’s head nodded, each time sinking a bit lower. As if he was acknowledging the fact that, yes, he gave in willingly, so fuck the world and let him be.

Already knowing the moves from two days ago, Sam pulled Dean closer until his brother’s head found a natural resting place in the depression between chest and shoulder. To stabilize his own position, Sam slithered down the couch a bit. Yeah, that was more like it!

The presenter on TV droned on, but Sam didn’t pay any attention any more. It was just the right kind of boring, the right kind of cozy although not exactly what he had envisioned. It had been something more along the lines of a hug after a long day or a playful ruffling of hair.

 _Dean did that a lot,_ Sam thought to himself. _Mussed my hair while we sat somewhere or when he said goodbye._

Sam bent the arm that had pulled Dean nearer to let it rest on the top of the backrest. Gingerly, he combed through the stubborn, thick mass of hair on top of Dean’s head. It had felt good when Dean had touched him like that – just the right kind of intimate.

Remembering what had been best about the experience, Sam let his fingers run through the gel-covered spikes and worked his way through them until he reached the scalp. A trace through the short hair above the ear and along the temple was no big deal, was it? Or a casual trip along the hairline above the forehead.

Slight stirring and a change of Dean’s breathing pattern clearly told Sam that he had to watch out what he was doing. Dean was waking up.

 _And if he does?_ Not stopping his hand’s motions, he watched Dean rouse slowly, first a twitching of the nose followed by a brief fluttering of the eyelids. A deep breath that faltered – causing Sam to freeze as well.

And then Dean was gone.

Scrambling clumsily to his feet, Dean was obviously still half asleep, as he violently rubbed his eyes. “What the fuck are you doing?” he asked, and it didn’t even sound very accusatory, just plainly confused. Sam almost pitied him.

“What did it look like?” he asked. Dean’s face became a mask of complete bewilderment.

“You were stroking my hair!” The voice was gaining strength, but Dean’s body language was not as aggressive as Sam had feared, so he opted for a bit more nonchalance.

“Wow, genius.” Would a smile help? Obviously not, Sam decided after the fury that had been lacking before now settled on Dean’s face.

“What _is_ this?” Dean shouted. “First it’s all about friendly pats on the back and now we’re headed toward Brokeback Mountain?”

“What…?” Sam broke off. Dean hadn’t said _that_. So this was what this whole fuss had been about? Sam felt a headache forming and he switched off the TV. “Dean, that’s pathetic,” he said, massaging his temples. “That’s how you’re wired? A little tenderness means getting laid?

Dean winced, taking a step backward.

 _Wait a minute,_ Sam thought. “And you watched Brokeback Mountain?” he asked.

“ _Everyone_ watched Brokeback Mountain,” Dean retorted defensively.

Sam coughed, unsuccessfully hiding his laugh. God, this was spiraling towards total craziness so quickly that Sam thought Dean would take off any second. He didn’t, though, but the helpless shuffling of his feet made it clear that he was just about to leave. With some effort, Sam sobered up and resorted to a crooked grin, and when that didn’t do the trick, he attempted the time-tested disapproving frown. Something had to chip off Dean’s resolve.

Dean turned away, then back, radiating unease. He craned his neck and rubbed it, all of it a display of such profound discomfort that Sam briefly considered ending this screw-up. He knew he could, in less than a heartbeat, and normally he would do it – Dean had been through enough.

Yet the words didn’t want to pass Sam’s lips and were held back by something that had dug its claws into him and refused to give in, that kept demanding and steadfastly rejected the idea of an unquestioned return to what they had become. To what Dean had become.

 _I learned something during that year,_ Sam thought bitterly. _And I’ll be damned if I just forget it._

All Dean had done was forget. But who could blame him?

“Look, Sam, I get it that we need some time to adjust. After that year, I mean,” Dean began, and Sam wanted to groan in frustration. The same litany, introduced by ‘Look, Sam, I get it’ when in reality Dean didn’t want anything more than push the unpopular facts as far away from him as possible.

Raising a hand, Sam signaled Dean to stop. “Spare me the sermon, all right?” he said. “It’s enough that you tell me you didn’t like it.”

Something on the wall to his right had caught Dean’s attention, it seemed, as he was suddenly staring at it with interest.

“You didn’t like it, did you?” Sam insisted. “What I was, um, doing.”

Dean’s eyes were still trained on the wall. “What does that have to do…?”

“I asked you if you didn’t like it,” Sam interjected. Digging his heels in, Dean crossed his arms over his chest. “Because that’s what this is about,” Sam continued regardless. “A bit of comfort. The feeling that someone’s there. If you like what I’m doing, fine. If you don’t, that’s also… fine. But just _tell_ me and don’t throw a fit!”

Sam didn’t know if the averted eyes hadn’t been preferable to the dark look he received now. It was a strange mix of feelings, though, anger and something that could have been guilt or another undecipherable expression. Yet Sam didn’t back down from the staring contest, even when the fury became more pronounced.

“It felt… nice,” Dean muttered and immediately spat: “Happy now?”

He spun around but didn’t make it to the front door quickly enough to miss Sam’s reply.

“Yep, definitely.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All the early flowers I can gather for daydreamernv!


	6. Chapter 6

Dean was convinced that, if left alone for a week, he’d manage to wear a path in the wood planks of the cabin floor. He had been pacing the length of the main room since Sam had left for a run and, seriously, he should have followed his first plan – to finally drink in peace. Yet he had quickly lost the desire for whiskey and instead had resorted to walking, as maddeningly restricted as it was.

Each time he passed the door he listened for Sam’s steps, cursing the setting sun and the dark woods and his own stupidity for even considering the possibility that Sam could be in danger.

 _Damn you, you…!_ Dean snorted. Even in his head, he was out of words.

But what could one say, really, to the accusations that were just a few hours old? If what Sam had said was true – and, just for a moment, Dean would assume it was – then John Winchester’s emotional ineptitude had been passed on directly to his first-born. And again, if there was something about Sam’s allegations, _if_ … well, it was for sure that the previous year hadn’t made things any better. How the hell was he supposed to know what an emotionally healthy home looked like?

So Sam was demanding something that, first, Dean had only limited experience with as time with Lisa was so long ago it resembled more a dream than a part of his past and, second, he was not capable of doing anyway.

Finally hearing the steps he had listened for in the past hour, Dean grabbed a half-empty glass from where he had left it on the counter. It felt a bit childish, like he was staging a show of defiance.

Three, two… One last step. A rustling when Sam got rid of his shoes. Then the handle was pressed.

Dean leaned against the counter, glad he had some sort of support when Sam burst inside. Panting and flushed, he beamed a smile at Dean before his eyes fell on the glass. There was the expected frown, but it didn’t stay long, Sam was too pumped, sweating through all the layers of his clothes.

Dean inhaled. Leaves and needles. Mud that clung to the trousers. And _Sam_.

“You should come with me the next time,” Sam gasped. He snatched his clothes from the chair and disappeared into the tiny bath.

Shuddering, Dean thought of the ice cold shower that greeted him each time he could bring himself to using it. Which was not as often as Sam would like him to, but he’d be damned if he let a water jet decide when exactly he wanted to be wide awake. After having been out for a run, it was somewhat more bearable, though, so perhaps Sam was right and he should change his routines.

 _Nah,_ Dean thought, _better clean myself from the inside._ He took a large swig on his way to the couch. The water came from a well and tasted like one’s own blood, as much iron as it contained. Impossible to do anything but washing up or showering with it. One could even taste it through the booze.

Dean sat down and refilled his glass yet he hadn’t even emptied it halfway when Sam came out of the bathroom to quickly down a bottle of water. While still toweling his hair he made an obvious point of not looking at Dean, so fortunately there wouldn’t be another lecture about too much alcohol, it seemed.

Puzzling over what on earth Sam _was_ up to at the moment, Dean watched him throw the towel over the chair, put on a shirt and then take a book from the pile next to the bunk bed. He lay down on the mattress and switched on the light and Dean couldn’t believe his eyes. That son of a bitch was reading! Lore, above all!

 _How dare he act all unaffected when for the rest of the time he does nothing but upend things?_ Dean felt anger bubbling up again and the usual mechanisms of self-control kicked in but failed to take hold. His brother was rag-bag of demands and accusations and sudden bouts of cuddling, all of which was supposed to be part of a quest for… yeah, what exactly? For something that had been part of their lives in the past, Sam had explained, but that said it all, didn’t it? It was the fucking _past_!

At a loss as to how to go on, Dean put the glass on the coffee table. The alcohol would surely not compensate for the deficit he obviously had, but if he really didn’t know what normal people did, he’d better steer clear of it. Only that Sam could be pretty damn persistent…

Dean coughed, prompting Sam to raise his head. “And where’s the line?” Dean asked, and immediately, Sam’s face became a beautiful show of I-don’t-know-squat.

“Could you specify that? There are quite a few in this book.”

“Not in the book, you idiot,” Dean said, regretting the lessening of Sam’s confusion. “You told me I can’t even see the difference between a friendly hug and a come-on. So how is this… this… supposed to work?” So _there_ , he wouldn’t specify the elephant in the room any further. Instead he gesticulated vaguely. “I’m obviously not qualified.”

The look of astonishment returned, though, and Dean traced back his words in search for something off-key. He cringed. Basically, all of it had sounded fairly odd, but especially the come-on part won first prize in awkward phrasing.

“We’re brothers, we don’t need a line,” Sam said and put away the book. “Look, Dean, I think you’ll figure out everything in given time. If there _is_ anything to figure out – because I doubt that.”

“It’s easy for you, with your Stepford wife and your dog and all that.” Dean stopped at Sam’s pronounced frown. No, nothing of this had sounded any better. “I just don’t trust myself, alright?” he tried, still floundering. “All I did last year was… you know what…”

Sam nodded, looking a bit helpless nonetheless. “But you’re still _you_ and I don’t know what you expect me to do, like… it’s not as if I’ve got some kind of _map_.”

“You more than I do,” Dean interjected.

“Dean, I’m not some poster boy for morals,” Sam continued. “It just takes one spell and we’d be at each other’s throats. Or a lost soul!” The moment it was out, Sam’s mouth snapped shut and he averted his eyes as if he had just realized what he had said. He got up and went to the fridge to grab another bottle of water.

Pushing himself off the couch, Dean stepped in Sam’s way. “That’s not gonna happen.”

Sam huffed out a condescending laugh. “Yeah, sure. And I’m not going to feed you to a vampire again or some other shit.”

“I was cured,” Dean said, but Sam narrowed his eyes.

“Yeah, and so was I.” He seemed to be pondering something that drew unusual worry lines on his face. “And that meant that we never found out what else I would’ve done… to people. To _you_ …” The sentence fizzled out and then Sam sat on the edge of the counter as if someone had just gotten tired of holding up his strings. Yet his mind was racing and Dean could almost see the cogs turning.

“I would’ve stopped you, you know?” But how could he stop him now? That self-deprecating bullshit had to come to an immediate end, Dean decided.

Sam looked him right in the eye. “You didn’t see it. It took you ages to figure out what was wrong with me.”

Breathing in to calm himself down, Dean suppressed the nausea following the guilt and the anger surging up. This wasn’t okay. Emotional trauma or not, that blow hit regions it wasn’t supposed to. “And what does that mean?” Dean asked. “That I’ve got a blind spot when it comes to you?”

“Works the other way round as well, so we’re both screwed,” said Sam, his choked up voice brushing away Dean’s rage. “So don’t tell me I could be some kind of moral compass, okay?”

“Sam, I wouldn’t have let you kill anyone!” Dean maintained and Sam gave him a wry smile before he turned to the side and stared at the table.

 _Nonono, you’re not going to do that!_ Dean implored inwardly when Sam blinked quickly, pressing together his slightly trembling lips. _Don’t do that to me!_

“I watched you getting turned by a vampire and I didn’t lift a finger.” Sam’s voice was a mere whisper. “But not feeling anything…” he continued but stopped to breathe in deeply. “It wasn’t all bad, you know?”

Dean froze and his whole world slowed down, ice clogging up his veins. The seconds ticked by and when he was able to rouse himself from his stupor he placed the bottle on the counter.

That damned story. All of those damned stories that comprised their messed up lives.

“Yeah,” he rasped and a thousand terrible episodes from hell surfaced and were buried again. “I know.”

More words refused to form, but there was no need, really, because talking was overrated. So Dean stepped forward and caught Sam in a bear hug from the side, effectively forcing the air out of both of their lungs. Almost automatically, Sam turned toward Dean and slid his arms around Dean’s nape and side, making it only possible to answer in kind.

Then a customary slap on the back and it would end, wouldn’t it?

 _Or not,_ Dean thought and tried not to fidget or to become completely unmoving, consciously reminding himself of a couple of days ago when Sam first hadn’t adhered to the rules of traditional male hugging. There shouldn’t be temples leaning against each other or a movement of the hand on his neck. And there definitely shouldn’t be telltale heat spreading through him just because of the alignment with another body…

Sam breathed in with a stutter and Dean’s focus shifted.

“I know…” Dean muttered against Sam’s shoulder and inhaled the scent that had spread calm and warmth in him the last time. Less pronounced now, it mingled with the shower gel and the shampoo and Dean wondered how many combinations of Sam and the world he would get to smell from now on. Because that was what Sam had decided, wasn’t it? Long hugs and fingers in his hair and everything that went along with the proximity that they had once shared.

 “We’ll be fine,” Dean said, wanting to believe it so badly, but his voice caught and he was grateful that Sam was still clinging to him. So he let his fingers relay more of their sensations, the soft T-shirt with the hard muscle underneath, the damp hair, and gradually, the unnatural heat and the distress subsided, turning into the calmness that Sam had started to exude.

“You were right,” Dean mumbled and reluctantly disentangled himself. “This feels good.”

Without looking up, Dean nodded to himself while shuffling toward the couch. He felt like an old man coming to terms with a world that he no longer understood.

From where he sat down, he sneaked a peak at Sam who had returned to the bunk bed. Smiling at the book he retrieved from the floor, Sam radiated the same dorky cheerfulness he had when he was younger.

Dean put his feet on the coffee table and relaxed. _Yup, felt about right._

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, daydreamernv, for sticking with me!


	7. Chapter 7

Sam woke up, but he instinctively silenced the alarm that had roused him. He felt a finger on his forehead and it was slowly following an invisible trail to his temple where it brushed aside some of his hair. It was a tender movement, a little hesitant perhaps, but nothing to worry about, and the muscles that had begun to tense let themselves be lulled back into the heaviness of sleep.

Only somewhere at the fringes of his consciousness, Sam felt the fingers become more sure in their movements and graze his ear. Everything was all right, though. He was in the cabin, no one else was there.

 _Just Dean,_ Sam thought and slowly blinked awake to confirm that, yes, Dean _was_ stroking him awake. So, the night before, after that angst-ridden episode, he hadn’t misread the signs. It was Dean who had initiated the hug, after all.

“Found us a case, sleepyhead,” Sam heard while he focused his eyes on the new reality. “Quick salt’n burn, I guess. Perfect for a newbie.”

The hand disappeared, but Sam still felt the traces of its warmth. _Thank God, finally_ , he thought. Dean was on board for a change in their ways. Something had flipped the switch at last.

“Alley-oop, up on the tightrope.” Dean interrupted Sam’s train of thought, prompting him to let his autopilot take over to pack the things he needed.

“How far away?” Sam asked.

“Five hours max,” Dean retorted with a grin. “Not too long a drive but reason enough to stay the hell away from here tonight.”

Sam laughed. “You bet.”

When Sam had finished packing his duffel, coffee already greeted him on the counter, but Dean didn’t wait for him to take it and instead handed it to him, giving him a light slap on the other arm when he took it.

“Gimme your stuff, I’ll load the car,” he said to Sam, snatching the bag from the bed. Speechless, Sam watched him leave, return for provisions and then leave again. Mostly forgetting to drink his coffee in the meanwhile, Sam needed to be reminded to finish it.

“Are you done?” Dean asked as he jingled his keys. “I’ll let you drive, if that will speed up the process.”

Sam almost choked on the last sip. Had Dean drunk so much that he couldn’t operate a car properly? He didn’t look like it. Quite to the contrary, actually.

Even after getting into the car on the driver’s side and turning the key in the ignition, Sam could barely believe that he was actually driving without Dean being too pissed, too injured, or too cursed to do it himself.

It was more like watching a film than living their everyday life and Sam tried to overcome the impression that he was just a spectator, because despite some reasonable amount of taunting about Sam’s choice of food or drink, nothing could shake the distinct weird factor of it all. The fact that Dean had packed anything healthy in the first place already spoke volumes.

 _Damn it, man, just believe your luck!_ Sam admonished himself. After days of hard work he had attained what he wanted and, now that it was really happening, he couldn’t accept it?

Sam stared at the road and worked through his muddled thoughts. Talking to Dean about this might spook him and ruin everything. Staying quiet wouldn’t do either as Sam had made a point of communicating lately, so a conspicuous silence like this shouldn’t go on for much longer.

“Oh man, that poor brain of yours,” Sam heard, and turned his head. Dean was smiling at him and then reached out, combing his fingers through Sam’s hair before pulling it just slightly at his nape.

“Why?” Sam asked automatically.

“They say a well-oiled machine has to be kept runnin’,” Dean mused and the fingers on Sam’s neck gave his hair a little, playful ruffle. “But hell, man, you should give it a rest sometimes.”

A grin and then the hand disappeared, leaving Sam with what he knew was a completely stupid look on his face. He forced himself to concentrate fully on the road again but couldn’t shake the elation that blurred his vision and sped up his pulse.

Dean was right. Thinking didn’t help. Talking just caused more problems. And taking action was what they always did, wasn’t it?

 _I made the new rules, so I’d better adhere to them,_ Sam thought and managed to calm himself down during the remainder of the trip. He was downright relieved when, in the motel, Dean picked the better bed – the one without the suspicious stain on the top blanket – and established that not _everything_ would be different from now on.

Purposefully, Sam took his usual place at the table, opened his laptop and checked the local newspapers.

“So the vic was a homeless man?” he asked. It was easy to spot the right article. Abandoned house, no traces of the killer.

“Yeah, but a woman walking her dog swears she saw someone else as well,” Dean answered, his voice coming closer. He would surely be hovering right behind Sam in a moment. “She had a look through the window and saw, I quote, ‘a ghost moving through the wall’. Was, as a direct consequence, referred to a mental health facility. It’s all in the follow-up article.”

“She’s out of town?” Sam asked before a hand landing on his shoulder distracted him.

“Yup, but there’s no need to question her anyway.” Dean’s voice was too smug to hide his satisfaction. “The thing’s crystal clear: family feud in the sixties, two killed. Bingo vengeful spirit.”

Sam scoured the local databases for more and found the information Dean had obviously already researched early in the morning.  “Maybe there’s something about the cemetery where the family is buried,” he said and opened yet another browser window. “Yeah, here it is. But let’s first go to the house tonight.”

“All right. What about in the meanwhile, we give that diner down the road a go?”

The hand gave an encouraging squeeze, making Sam grin involuntarily. And this time it wasn’t only because of the ‘Home-baked Pie’ sign, dashy enough to be seen from two miles away, that Dean continued to be all excited and chipper. Not that it would amount to much small talk on their short walk, but the amused smile and the constant crinkle in the corners of his eyes were even accompanied occasionally by brushing forearms.

“Come on Sammy, step on it or they’ll run out of pie. It’s late!” A hand on his back that stayed there to urge him on and push him through the door joined in the array of little touches. “Ah, that’s the kinda display I like.”

Sam disregarded the pie and instead found an empty booth. He slid into it and then watched Dean study the pastry display while working a bit of his magic on a pretty waitress at the same time.

Yeah, go for it! Sam thought. Make that poor girl all flustered and giggly!

Stopping for a moment because the notion had something foreign to it, Sam’s mind was immediately distracted when Dean turned his head and winked, mouthing a word that, together with the excited pointing could only mean ‘apple’.

Sam grinned and shrugged out of his jacked, but continued to train his eyes on Dean who was looking at the menu. Engrossed, his brows working and his mouth forming small, inaudible words, like so often when he was concentrating.

It had always been hypnotizing when he gave something his entire attention. _He gave it to me until I grew weary of it_ , Sam thought to himself. How foolish to throw it away…

Dean placed his order and after marching to Sam’s table all but flung himself into the booth. Knees knocked into each other but were not positioned at a distance afterward. “Asked them if they had salad,” Dean announced. “Turns out they just serve it as a side order. No luck for you.” A mockingly triumphant grin and a raised eyebrow were a clear invitation for some banter.

Sam sat back and took in the unalloyed playfulness. _He looks happy,_ shot through his head while his throat constricted slightly. God, this wasn’t the right time to get sentimental!

“I didn’t see her slip you her phone number, so no luck for you either,” he returned and coughed.

Dean sighed dramatically. “Pie’s enough for the moment.” The grin stretched into a wide smile. “I’m starting off slow.”

 

****

 

Rolling over, Sam tried to end the nap the food and his foresight had forced him to take. All-nighters were exhausting enough and not everyone could function on three hours, like Dean. Focusing on his surroundings, Sam wondered if, after the relaxing overindulgence of carbohydrates, the conspicuous zero-g loop on the rollercoaster would last longer than the afternoon.

 _I could damn well do with another bit of this high,_ Sam reckoned, and going by the fact that Dean was sitting at the table, cleaning the shotgun and _humming_ to himself, there was a real chance.

“Welcome to the land of the living,” Dean said with a smirk. “So we can finally take a stroll in the land of the dead.”

When Sam sat up groggily, Dean got up too and approached Sam’s bed with confident steps. “Gotta get that mop under control before you leave, you hear me?”

Knowing what he was to expect, Sam dutifully held still when Dean reached out to ruffle his hair. He couldn’t help doing his habitual check for empty bottles… no, nothing, Dean still hadn’t been drinking.

“What’s it gonna be?” Dean asked and Sam’s eyes darted back to him, following him through the room to his duffel.

“What?” Sam attributed it to his half-awake state that his mind stumbled over the question. And why was Dean getting undressed?

“Gas leak or FBI?” Dean explained, pointing at his bag. “I mean, there’s no one living in the house, but this town is so damn white picket fence! We even stand out with our usual jackets.”

“Journalists from out of town,” Sam suggested quickly and Dean’s face lit up.

“Ah, yeah, shabby tweed. I think I’ve got something for that.”

With his wits together at last, Sam got up and searched for something appropriate. Yeah, the shirt with the blue-beige check and the woolen jacket would do nicely and he could even combine them with the jeans he was already wearing. In a hurry to get the clothes on, Sam gave a start when Dean materialized in front of him.

“You look like crap, son,” Dean said with a crooked grin. He folded down the collar and then his hand wandered down Sam’s shoulder to come to a stop on the upper arm. “Couldn’t have chosen anything more boring. Perfect.” Dean rubbed the arm a bit, looked at Sam and waited, one, two, three, four…as if he was expecting something before then he finally let go. “Let’s grab the guns.”

Five, six, seven – in his head, Sam continued counting while trying to tear his eyes off Dean.

“You coming?” Dean ripped him from his thoughts.

Sam nodded while looking for anything he could still pack. There was nothing, of course, Dean had seen to that, so he trudged outside.

“Who do you think is the target?” Sam asked when he plunked into the car.

“It’s not clear who killed who. If the ghost has a moustache, it’s the father. Sans moustache, voilà, le son.”

Sam grunted. “Cut out the French, Dean, will you?”

“I’m being civilized here!” Dean protested.

“You’re adding a round of butchering to the hunting, that’s what,” Sam teased him, earning a ‘Shut it, college boy’, a slap on his thigh and the first pick in music.

Sam knew he had a smile plastered on his face, but he couldn’t help it. It wouldn’t go away, not on their way to the house or while they were searching for the ghost, nor when they made a circle of salt in the living room. There was no furniture anywhere, so they sat in the middle, leaning against the other’s back. No questions, no awkward shuffling – now all of it just happened because this was what they had done when they were younger; sitting cross-legged and literally having each other’s back while waiting for their target.

Dean groaned. “Bah, that’s boring.”

“We could take turns keeping watch,” Sam suggested.

“Your turn first,” Dean answered and immediately settled against Sam’s back, curling up sideways like a dog.

Sam chuckled. “Sure, no problem,” he said, although after some minutes his back started hurting. The light snoring was worth the effort.

 _I just need to shift a little,_ Sam thought to himself and, some careful maneuvering later, the pressure greatly subsided, at the only cost of Dean’s head gliding down Sam’s side and into his lap.

Would he be alright with that? Sam wondered before he answered his own question. Dean looked peaceful and he didn’t even stir when Sam laid his hand on his cropped hair.

Catching himself gazing at Dean, Sam remembered the diner and the motel. He’d been equally unable to get enough of that view, as if only by continuously looking at Dean he’d have proof that he wouldn’t suddenly disappear.

 _Oh hell, I really_ am _getting sentimental,_ he admitted to himself. Huffing, he raised his head – only to stare into a pair of lifeless eyes.

Sam froze. _Sans moustache,_ flitted through his head.

“Dean, we’ve got company!” he hissed, and Dean scrambled to his feet. Before Sam could get up and grab the shotgun, Dean was already driving the spirit down the hallway, rock salt bouncing off the walls wherever it went.

“It’s sticking to my heels, dammit!” Dean swore. Sam followed the voice and managed to get a clear shot at the ghost, but it appeared at the other end of the room again, right next to Dean who swung an iron poker at it.

“I think it’s especially after you,” Sam shouted when Dean dashed past him, the ghost in tow.

“You’re saying?” Dean retorted, puffing and blowing. “Any idea why?”

“You’re the…” Sam began and then waited until the next burst of gunfire was over. “It’s because of your age. He was killed by his father!”

What happened next wasn’t pretty, with Dean emptying his entire arsenal on the ghost before he repeatedly swung the iron poker with such vigor that one time, it got stuck in the plaster.

“Dean! Dean!” Sam shouted, but he couldn’t stop the mayhem, so in the end, he just grabbed the poker and pulled Dean with him, out of the house and down the driveway.

“What the hell, Sam?” Dean cursed, clutching the handle and pulling with all of his might.

“We know who it is, so all we gotta do is dig up the grave!” Sam ripped the poker from Dean’s hands. “Get a Ferrari, will you?”

Briefly, Dean was irritated before he finally understood. “I’m not having a midlife crisis,” he muttered and then brushed past Sam.

“I could do most of the digging,” Sam suggested. He grinned when Dean slammed the door, but inside the car there was no escape. “Go easy on your sciatic nerve. I mean, at your age…”

“Shut up.” It was almost inaudible, soft. Sam smiled and gave Dean a playful punch in the shoulder before he took off the jacket and the shirt to replace it with the usual plaid. After hiding the car in the only place possible in the cemetery – next to a compost heap, much to Dean’s chagrin – they got out the spades and shovels and set out to search for what they hoped would be a family crypt.

When they found the grave, Dean groaned in a theatrical display of exhaustion. “At least they all have an individual headstone. I thought family grave meant a vault.”

“Here it means plot, obviously,” Sam said, patting Dean’s back. “Now get over it and start digging.” He straightened and shoved the spade into the ground. Not allowing Sam a head start, Dean followed his lead.

“You don’t have to prove yourself,” Sam panted, replacing the spade with the shovel after the first terribly compacted yard.

“There’s nothing… to prove,” Dean said, gasping and pausing between words. “If someone’s out of shape, it’s you.” He dropped the load on his shovel exactly where Sam was digging, just to have his own lot filled up with dirt from Sam’s side. They repeated the useless procedure several times and Sam’s hands already started to ache when Dean stopped, pressing a fist into his hip. “Hey! Cut it out! Doesn’t that, I dunno, violate the new… bro rules or something?”

He gave up his posture and instead supported himself on Sam’s shoulder.

“You started it,” Sam replied. He copied Dean and leaning on each other, their heavy breathing slowed down. Hot muscles relaxed until their vibrations established a subtle physical communication.

“No, you started it,” Dean said and looked to the side, answering Sam’s raised eyebrow with a meaningful grin that left Sam confused at first.

“No, actually…” Sam began before he understood and smiled. _Yeah, I started it. Thank God I did._

Dean shook his head in amusement, ending the eye contact that Sam would have liked to maintain a bit longer. “Never mind,” Dean said, disengaging himself from the crutch they were providing each other and grabbed the shovel again. “Let’s get that sucker out.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And daydreamernv stood ready for the betaing again! Cheers!


	8. Chapter 8

Drowsily, Dean gathered the pieces of reality his brain already allowed him to process. His face was leaning against something warm. Too warm to be a pillow, and also too hard. Perhaps it was Sam’s thigh he had fallen asleep next to – no, not the thigh, more likely Sam’s shoulder.

So Sam had moved down the mattress instead of just using the other bed. Served him right if he had spent a crappy night. Doing research after a hunt always ended in nodding off in an uncomfortable position and nothing was worth that. It hadn’t even been about anything interesting, in fact it had been so boring that even catching a glimpse of it had caused Dean to sleep right where he had let himself drop.

Dean heard a groan and the bed dipped, sending something hard down on his face.

“What the…?” Dean grumbled and pushed the object away. The fucking laptop! “Dude!”

Through bleary eyes, he saw hands grapple for the computer and then the mountain of plaid next to him rolled over, only to roll back instantly. “I’m falling out, man,” he heard Sam say, so Dean shuffled to the side and closed his eyes again.

“Serves you right. Get your own bed,” Dean muttered.

“This _is_ my bed.”

 _Yeah, right._ Dean let his breathing even out again. Another hour, maybe two. His inner clock demanded more of that precious sleep, that warm, safe place that had been completely free of nightmares for a change. He rolled on his stomach to establish contact with Sam again, even if it was only a slight touch of arms. Yup, perfect. And the strange mental picture of Sam demanding exactly this course of action? It was still there – but only for a fleeting moment.

It had been necessary at first, that sanctioning of the somewhat newish habits, until at some point during the previous day, it vanished.

 _I’m such a fucking good soldier,_ Dean thought and inhaled the mixture of sweat, dust and dirt that came from them both. _And I should shower._

“… really shower,” he heard, and against his will, a deeply ingrained habit of rivalry got the better of him.

“M’first…” Dean slurred and heaved himself up to stumble to the bathroom. He clumsily shed his clothes while he waited for the water to turn warm, and finally, under the jet, his vision cleared.

What a relief to have warm water! A shower that didn’t feel like your skin was pierced by icicles! _This is the life,_ Dean thought while he foamed up shampoo and washed his hair, saving the high point for the very end: lathering himself with Sam’s namby-pamby pH-balanced shower gel because hell, it didn’t smell half bad and it didn’t sting in the important places, even when one didn’t wash it off immediately.

With a thankful sigh, Dean grabbed his dick that had already stirred to life on the bed when he had rolled over on his stomach. With practiced movements he coaxed it to full hardness, carefully making sure that there would always be some of the soap to reduce the friction.

 _Okay, now hurry. No slow build-up,_ he automatically reminded himself and rushed to his climax. His frantic hand was almost overexciting his nerves and the tingling in his spine became a pull in his groin in no time. With a last insistent tug, he forced himself over the edge, supporting himself on the tiled wall the moment his orgasm hit. The urge to moan out loud was so strong that his teeth felt like they would chip, as hard as he clenched them.

 _Jesus,_ he mouthed. Catching his breath, he simultaneously sluiced the white stripes that were painting the tiles. If there was any proof that their stay in the cabin had been much too long, it was this obvious wank backlog. He didn’t know how Sam endured the lack of privacy, but perhaps he rid himself of his urges during all those insane hours of running?

Dean shook off the unnecessary image and quickly got out of the tub. What was clear, though, was that a bit of civilization didn’t hurt. Just like a decent diner and a laundromat – and they definitely needed all of this for longer than a day and a half!

Purposefully, Dean wrapped a towel around his waist and grabbed his discarded clothes. “Sam, we’re not going back to the cabin,” he announced when he entered the main room, but the only reaction he elicited was a movement of an arm covering tired eyes and some blinking. “I can’t return to that dump in the woods. Not right away,” Dean added.

“Okay,” Sam said and gave a shrug. “Fine with me.” He got up slowly and shuffled toward the bathroom. “And what are we gonna do?”

“I’ll find a case,” Dean promised before the door was closed. _Hell, yeah, I will._ And things would be like the day before. Like there was some kind of spell that set him free, imperceptibly altering his life by showing tiny cracks in what had seemed like a plausible reality after Purgatory.

It was strange. He was just about to escape yet another monster realm.

The shower was turned on and Dean started to get dressed. Finding a case not too far off wouldn’t be easy, but he could at least try and put off the inevitable return to the cabin for maybe another day. Hurrying through the papers, Dean had already scanned all the local ones before Sam finished in the bathroom. When he heard the door open, Dean was about to extend the radius to the entire state.

“Got something?” Sam asked and it sounded like he had his toothbrush in his mouth.

“Not yet,” Dean said. He stopped scrolling. “There were two stabbings about three hours from here.”

“And?” Sam seemed to have retreated to the bathroom again.

“Usually I would say that’s not our funeral…”

“I told you not to use that expression,” Sam interrupted him.

“All right, but the second vic survived and described the attacker as the Devil himself,” Dean said. “Said he literally stank like Hell.”

“You’re thinking sulfur?”

“Damn right, I’m thinking sulfur,” Dean said and looked up, grinning. He snatched his treacherous hand back because although Sam was now near enough to be given a friendly pat, in his boxers he definitely wasn’t dressed enough.

 _Holy shit, he’s tall,_ Dean thought with a long-known twinge of jealousy as Sam was walking to the duffel. _And so fucking strong._ It was frightening sometimes, how Sam’s sheer physical presence could fill a room. Not only the inch or three he had on Dean, but the amount of muscle this entailed. In the end, it had always been down to Dean’s experience when Sam hadn’t been able to win a fight.

Leaning back in his chair, Dean watched Sam dress. Served the Sasquatch right to get another taste of diminished privacy, especially as he was all about tearing down walls recently. And the view was what a lot of people would go for, wasn’t it? Because the fucker looked like a goddamn Adonis, if one was honest.

Dean’s fingers dug into the armrest the moment the thought popped up. There it was again, that damn automatism. He definitely had to get it under control. And hell, he could, because there was nothing wrong with appreciating the male form, was it? He’d always done that.

He wouldn’t start trying to explain things away again. And Sam had said that whatever reaction their newfound familiarity caused, it was alright, there was nothing to worry about. All he had to do was ignore the automatic connections his brain insisted on making.

Dean fixed his eyes on the laptop again and commanded himself to focus on the central aspects of the day: a syrupy breakfast, a relaxing drive and the next hot shower. Garnished with some seasonal monster. Or not, who cared. He had earned a break!

When Sam was ready, Dean walked over to him. Now the clap on the back was due, producing the expected warm smile in return, making Dean wonder how a slight curve of the mouth could make him feel all fuzzy inside. The feeling prevailed during the syrup and the drive, only the shower he had been looking for wasn’t about to happen because as soon as they entered their small town destination, they heard police sirens.

Dean sighed. “Hooray, they’re playing our song.”

As if on cue, Sam clambered into the backseat to change and Dean risked a glance through the rear mirror.

“I feel like a fucking contortionist,” Sam groaned.

“Practice a bit more and I’ll rent you out to a circus,” Dean said and stopped the car to begin his own struggle with his suit. When Sam got out and entered through the passenger door, he was just about to button up his shirt.

“Here, let me…” Sam said and slid the tie under Dean’s collar. Their hands grazed when their activities overlapped, but then Dean let the fiddling fingers under his chin do their work on their own. It was more interesting to watch Sam who was biting his lower lip, his mind completely on the task.

“Fancy enough?” Dean asked and their eyes locked.

Sam inclined his head, his hands straightening the tie. “Ready for the runway, Agent… what’s your name today?”

“DeLeo, stupid,” Dean answered without malice. “And you’re Weiland.”

“Ah, I see, we’re running out of classic rock.”

Still maintaining eye contact, Dean missed the moment for a witty retort.   

“I guess we’re ready to go,” Sam rasped and cleared his throat, rousing Dean.

“You’re right.” Reluctantly, Dean turned to the road and steered Baby toward the lights flashing through the night. After barely more than a mile’s drive, the street was blocked by police vehicles.

“You think you’re up for the dance?” Sam asked and Dean huffed out a laugh before he stepped out of the car.

“More than you,” he muttered while directly aiming for the guy with the pot belly. Had to be the sheriff. “Agents DeLeo and Weiland.”

Dean could imagine Sam flashing his badge as well and putting on the reliable-but-strict-agent act, but the body of the victim was more interesting than the technicalities. He left further introductions to Sam and instead sniffed inconspicuously. Sulfur for sure, he thought and tuned back into the conversation.

“A witness saw the perpetrator heading south, but there have been reports of people spotting some mad guy near the woods in the north,” the sheriff was just explaining. “Might be some homeless drifter, who knows. I haven’t got enough personnel to cover both tracks.”

“We go north.” Dean didn’t even wait for Sam to acknowledge the plan. A nod from the sheriff was all it needed to make him head off, Sam’s steps following him after some initial hesitation.

“Dude!” Sam burst out in the car. “A little warning?”

“You saw anything else?” Dean asked. “I mean, apart from the pine needles next to the victim?”

Again, there was no need to look in order to get a clear picture of Sam’s reaction. Pinched lips. Intense glowering. Damn, Dean wished he wasn’t racing a car out of town and could take his time savoring his victory.

“The next time, you do the briefing with the police,” Sam muttered. “It’s not fair that… Wait! Did you see that?”

It hadn’t been more than a shadow, but Dean had also registered something scurrying through the underbrush. He stepped on the brakes and then hurried into the woods, Sam right next to him. Drawing guns and flashlights in sync when they reached the shrubbery, they followed the snapping twigs.

“It’s making quite a ruckus,” Sam whispered. “For a demon I mean. You’re sure it’s one?”

“Yup,” Dean retorted, fervently hoping that his instincts hadn’t betrayed him. He almost stumbled over a root but kept his path regardless, always listening for the noises that weren’t far away from them anymore.

“Ten o’clock!” Sam hissed and Dean wheeled around, catching the figure in his light beam as well.

“Well, that answers the question,” Dean muttered, but Sam had obviously also seen the black eyes because as soon as the demon turned around again and made a run for it, he dashed after him at what felt like light speed to Dean. “Fuck, Sam, wait!” he shouted, but his foot got stuck in yet another rabbit hole. “Fucking shit!”

A shout sounded through the night, unbearably loud even against the backdrop of the blood pumping through Dean’s veins and his frantic heartbeat.

 _It’s not Sam,_ he thought, breaking through the bushes and stumbling into a small clearing. _Don’t let it be him!_

At the far end of the clearing, the demon was kneeling on the ground, hovering over somebody – Sam! – and its arm was raised as if to wind up for a strike. In the moonlight, Dean could see the reflection of the bloody knife and he fired his gun, making the figure wince in pain and drop its weapon.

“Sam!” Dean shouted, but there was no movement of the body that was still pinned down by the demon. “Sammy!”

Emptying his clip at the creature while he was running, Dean drew his knife and jumped the moment he was barely close enough, burying the blade in the demon’s back. The strange electric discharge of hellish death was just about to begin when Dean had already shoved the creature aside.

“Sam, are you alright?” He quickly patted him down for wounds but couldn’t find any. “Sam, damn it! Say something!” Two fingers at the throat’s artery – yeah, there was the pulse. Dean gasped for breath. Thank God, his own heart attack had been averted. “Come on, Sammy!” he implored.

Finally, Sam stirred, cringing when he craned his neck. “Fucking roots,” he muttered. “I think I knocked myself out.”

Dean wanted to laugh out loud. Or scream in frustration. Or punch Sam for his goddamn idiocy! “You can’t do that, okay? You’re giving me a stroke,” he said through clenched teeth. But Sam was alright, wasn’t he? Dean cupped Sam’s jaw with his hand. Yeah, felt alright. He barely registered that his other hand began stroking Sam’s cheek.

“Next time we stay together,” Dean said. As an answer, a small frown formed and then disappeared again right when one of Sam’s hands wandered a cold path along Dean’s neck to warm itself.

“Yeah,” Sam rasped, holding Dean’s gaze.

Giving the stubbly skin a last gentle caress before he let go, Dean got up. “You know what?” he asked. “That’s not what people mean when they tell you to get laid.”

Sam picked up his flashlight and shone it in his own face to make sure Dean saw the impressive eye-roll. “Very funny.”

“Just saying.” Dean shrugged and pulled him up. “Good thing I left the parking light on. So you can at least find your way back home, Hansel.”

Sweeping the ground for more tripping hazards, they set out for the road.

“Does that make you Gretel?” Sam asked. Dean couldn’t suppress a snort.

“If anything, _you’re_ Gretel, Samantha.”

“Alright, for saving my ass out there, I get to be both.” Dean knew that that infernal smile had been somewhere in the inflection of Sam’s words and his suspicions were confirmed when Sam pulled him near and walked him the last yards to the car like he was escorting a fucking prom date.

 _I should do that,_ Dean thought. Sam was hurt. But hell, it was comforting regardless.

Later, at the diner, Dean couldn’t shake the feeling that Sam was watching him, but the moment he caught him, he didn’t look embarrassed at all. And if that didn’t take the fun out of it already, he even gave another sample of his rediscovered open, trusting expression. It should be illegal, really, because it was so fucking magnetic that Dean could only barely keep himself from doing something crazy like reach out for Sam’s face again.

 _What’s wrong with me?_ Dean wondered when they had arrived back at the motel again. Was it really what Sam had said? That he couldn’t deal with the situation because it was somewhat… sensual?

Dean stopped. Where the hell had that word come from? And it was bullshit anyway, he decided, and plunked down next to Sam, who had settled on Dean’s bed to do research.

“Get off,” Dean commanded weakly, rubbing his shoulder against Sam’s thigh.

“In a minute,” Sam said and stayed.

Dean closed his eyes and felt sleep pull at his mind almost instantaneously, but when there was movement on the bed, he admitted some residual light through the slits of his eyes. It formed a sketchy idea of Sam’s face.

“What’s up?” Dean grunted, and the face that was too near for a clearly coherent picture twitched, mouth and eyes announcing an answer.

“Nothing, just trying to fall asleep,” Dean heard when he had already shut out the world again.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And thanks a ton, daydreamernv, for the betaing!


	9. Chapter 9

The ceiling paint came off in really large flakes. Together with the cracks in the plaster, they made up an almost impressionistic painting garnished with random wads of chewing gum.

Sam gave up his study of the ceiling and rolled over into the empty space next to him. Some of Dean’s residual warmth seeped through his shirt although the sound of running water indicated that Dean had gone to the bathroom some time ago.

 _He looked so innocent sleeping,_ Sam thought to himself. _And relaxed, for a change._

Just like in the diner, or the previous morning. The only exception was the episode in the woods where Dean had been spooked beyond reason, if his face had been any indication.

Sam winced, lifted his head and winced some more. Okay, _that_ was a headache of major proportions. Yet another reason to avoid getting hurt.

Carefully, Sam sat up, sorting through the still functioning compartments of his mental inventory. Where had he put the pain meds? Into the duffel or the travel kit?

“Travel kit,” he muttered. Deciding that Dean wouldn’t mind the disturbance, he was still showering anyway, Sam crept through the room, always adamant about causing as few shocks to his head as possible. He stole into the bathroom and had almost reached the shelf with the toiletries when a noise stopped him dead in his tracks.

Dean had groaned. And it hadn’t just been any groan, it had been _the_ … it had been a moan, for sure.

Mortified, Sam debated his options. He should say something, call attention to himself. Yet the water was still running and he could also simply snatch the bag and hope Dean would continue showering long enough to make an escape possible.

And if he didn’t? Well, that would cap it all off. So, no, not an option. Sam inhaled and then coughed loudly. “Hey Dean, sorry, I need something for my headache.”

There was a pronounced pause, only accompanied by the running water.

“Yeah, yeah, go ahead,” sounded from the other side of the curtain.

 _Slightly rushed, that voice._ Sam grinned involuntarily. With as much clarity as his hammering headache allowed, he grabbed the vial and retreated, concentrating on the medication first.

Opening the bottle. Downing a pill. And not thinking about when he had last caught Dean masturbating.

 _It has to be years,_ shot through Sam’s head when suddenly the door to the bathroom opened and Dean stepped out, just in pants and T-shirt, his hair still wet.

“Your turn,” he murmured.

 _It would’ve killed the mood for me too,_ Sam thought, and returned to the steam-filled room. Frowning at himself, he brushed away the idea that all of this was embarrassing. The day before, he had done the same as Dean.

Yet now, even though his dick seemed interested, Sam decided that he wasn’t in for a repeat performance and he snatched his hand away from his growing erection. Not everything had to become a ritual. Besides, his head was still hurting and he definitely needed to eat, so he finished his shower and happily noticed his headache subsiding. When he entered the main room, it had almost returned to a bearable level.

“Grab breakfast?” Dean asked good-naturedly.

“Sure,” replied Sam and followed Dean outside.

“And what’s it gonna be?”

Sam blinked into the bright autumn sun. How late was it? He hadn’t checked.

“It’s almost eleven, so how about pancakes?” Dean suggested, ushering Sam in the direction of a little café opposite the motel.

“We’ll see,” Sam said. But no, pancakes sounded awful, with his head still in a bit of a mess. The good sign was that Dean couldn’t read his mind after all, although for a moment it had appeared that way. What a crazy thought…

They found a booth and while they were still settling in, an overeager waitress with green hair poured them coffee.

“Can I interest you in our organic smoothies? Freshly made to order,” she chirped.

Dean’s face became downright pained. “Wrong person,” he grunted and nodded toward Sam. “Ask him.”

“You have muesli?” Sam grabbed the menu to skim through it. “Oh yes, I see. Fruit salad, yoghurt and muesli for me,” he said, enjoying the show of Dean’s increasingly sour face.

“How can you even eat that?” Dean asked.

“Consider your cholesterol,” Sam pointed out.

“Oh that! I totally forgot.” Dean’s face brightened and he turned to the waitress. “Eggs and toast. And make that a lot. Of eggs I mean.”

The young woman smiled and marched off, but Dean didn’t pay her miniskirt-clad form any attention. Instead, he leaned back in his seat, immensely satisfied and waiting for a comeback. Sam just shrugged.

“I know enough CPR to get you through the time the paramedics need to arrive.” He was surprised how casually he managed to say it, suppressing the considerable alarm the mere idea caused.

Dean glowered. “There’s nothing wrong with my arteries.”

“So when was the last time you went for a checkup?” No answer. _Of course_. “I guess that wouldn’t go so well for your blood values and I’m not even talking about liver function readings.”

“Cut it out, okay?” Dean commanded.

“For the moment, yes. In the long run: a definite no.” Sam looked around the café inconspicuously and then quickly took Dean’s wrist. “I want you to stay for a bit longer this time. There are enough powers that want to see us six feet under and I don’t need _you_ to be one of them!” He squeezed the wrist lightly and imagined he felt the faint throbbing of a pulse.

“Alright, alright,” Dean rasped and held Sam’s gaze unflinchingly.

Warmth spread from Sam’s hand to the rest of his body in a strange fashion. Welcome and not matching anything he had ever encountered before and he followed its impact curiously as his chest gave the impression of expanding under it. Surprised, he breathed in deeply when a movement caught his attention.

The food was coming, so Sam withdrew his hand, his fingers gliding over Dean’s.

“Can I get you anything else?” the waitress asked and arranged the plates on the table. “Refill?”

“No, we’re good.” Immediately, Dean began to eat, but despite his initial enthusiasm, he didn’t seem to be very eager to finish.

“Sorry, I didn’t wanna spoil your breakfast,” said Sam between two spoonfuls of muesli. Damn it, that stuff was hard to chew!

“Nah, doesn’t matter, the eggs taste like cardboard left to soak,” Dean answered morosely.

Sam laughed. “Reminds me of that place in Oregon.” He knew Dean remembered it well, going by the grimace he made. “Jeez, we’ve eaten in some terrible joints.”

“And some great ones,” Dean interjected.

“How many might it have been?” Sam mused. “I mean, altogether?”

This really seemed to get Dean thinking. “A thousand?” he tried, but corrected himself instantly. “Thousands.” They grinned at each other and Dean added with a sigh: “We went to that steakhouse in Alabama four times.”

“ _You_ went four times,” Sam grumbled. “I had food poisoning after the third visit.”

“Yeah, good times.” Dean waggled his eyebrows and Sam stepped on his foot in retaliation.

“Past times,” Sam said. He signaled the waitress to come over to them. “Excuse me, I’d like to try one of your green smoothies.”

“The Veggie Wonder or the Green Bliss?” she asked excitedly.

“Green Bliss?” Saying the name already made Sam regret his idea and the moment the dark green drink was served, he knew why. It would be anything but bliss.

“And?” Dean asked.

Yup, it tasted like crap and Sam knew he couldn’t fool Dean. “Mediocre,” he answered, making a mental note that he should stay away from spinach in those things.

“Told you so.” Dean shoveled in the rest of his eggs. “And now? Dig up another case?” he asked, still chewing.

“Sounds good.” Sam smiled and added a generous tip to the bill. The waitress deserved it for advertising that nasty stuff so convincingly.

“You’re really feeling up to it?” Dean asked out on the street. “Especially after that rabbit food?”

“Shut it, old man,” Sam retorted and staggered to the side when Dean bumped into him forcefully.

“Watch it, greenhorn.” Dean didn’t wait for the payback and ran across the street toward the motel. Avoiding a truck, Sam needed time to catch up with him, but before Dean could reach the parking lot, Sam shoved him into the steel beam of the motel’s sign. There was no pause, though, as Dean jumped right back and wrapped his arm around Sam’s neck, putting him in a headlock.

“Who’s the old geezer?” Dean rejoiced and loosened his grip so they could continue walking.

“You are,” Sam laughed and tripped Dean up. It just had the effect that they were both stumbling like two drunken idiots, but Sam couldn’t bring himself to a more aggressive resistance. It was warm, it was sunny, and Dean was laughing like a madman. This was how life was supposed to be.

“You’ve got the key,” Dean wheezed when they arrived at their door.

“ _You_ have it,” Sam answered.

“No, you…” A jingling told Sam that Dean had found it, putting a definite end to their game. The arm that had been looped around his neck let go and Sam felt slightly forlorn when he entered the room. He watched Dean take a chair and open the laptop, but couldn’t work up the motivation to join him.

Perhaps food would help. The vegetarian breakfast hadn’t really sated him after all – not that he would ever tell Dean that – and after some rummaging around in his duffel he found an oversized caramel bar.

“I think I deserve you,” he told it and looked up, catching Dean’s bewildered expression that changed into something completely different right away.

“We still got _those_?” Dean growled.

“ _One_ of those,” Sam clarified, taking a step backward as Dean got up and slowly approached like a predator on his prowl.

“You know how long I’ve been hunting for them? I couldn’t get them anywhere!”

“Yeah? Tough luck!” Sam retorted. “You made it pretty clear that all of my food is inedible, so I wouldn’t wanna burden you with this.”

“You know I didn’t mean it that way!” Dean whined, his eyes fixed on the candy. “Come on, Sam! Sammy!”

“Nope,” Sam took two more steps backward.  

“If I really wanted it, you couldn’t hold on to it anyway,” Dean challenged him. “After knocking _yourself_ out yesterday.”

Sam snorted out a laugh. “Last time we sparred, _you_ called it quits.”

Compressing his lips, Dean seemed to ponder. Briefly Sam thought the threat was over, but then Dean’s entire posture told him that he had risen to the challenge despite his hesitation. Involuntarily, Sam’s hand cramped around the chocolate bar.

“Last offer: We split it up,” Dean snarled. He stepped to the side and blocked Sam’s last escape route.

“And I say I enjoy it all by myself.” The feral grin spreading on Dean’s face cleared the decks: This was all the warning he would get after such a provocation, and Sam’s muscles tensed, not a moment too soon. He barely avoided a stranglehold but couldn’t duck fast enough to prevent being wrestled to the floor.

“Give it…!” Dean gasped and Sam laughed, holding the candy out of reach, which also meant forfeiting one of his arms in the fight. He compensated for his disadvantage with his legs, clutching Dean’s middle with an imperfect scissors hold.

“Never!”

With all of his strength, Dean contorted himself and tried to break free to reach the extended arm. It felt odd to have him squirm between the legs, strangely familiar to a degree, but not quite _. It’s like…_ Sam’s train of thought was interrupted when Dean managed to break free at last and roll them over. A knee between Sam’s legs made the reverse movement impossible and Dean reached out to grab the bar, his body pressing Sam down.

Sam inhaled sharply. _What the… fuck!_ No, no, this wasn’t… but it was… unmistakably, his dick hardening. Just like this morning. But _unlike_ this morning, he couldn’t ignore it… _holy_ … not when Dean’s touch became electric from one second to the next, with his whole body aligning like… like…

“Lemme go, Dean!” Sam shouted and made an attempt to scuttle away with Dean’s full weight. As this didn’t work, he struggled with his entire force, uncoordinated fighting moves notwithstanding, he just needed to get away!

“What the…?” Dean growled, but relented slightly without completely giving up his position.

“Please, please, let go, Dean!” Sam begged and sent him off with a massive push. _Finally! God_ … Sam scrambled to his feet and continued to retreat, backward, away from everything until he hit a wall.

“What? What is it, Sammy?” he heard through his panicky breathing. _Yes, what? What’s going on? What the fuck…?_ Sam registered his hand still clutching something and he threw it away as if it was poisoned. The goddamn chocolate bar!

“We have to stop that,” Sam whispered. _Where’s my voice?_

“What? We did!” Dean gave back.

We did? Was that a joke? Sam drew his eyes away from the candy to make out his surroundings. Thankfully Dean was far away enough. His face? Cluelessness was all one could read. Which was impossible because during their scuffle, he must have felt _it_ , beyond any question!

“Not…” Sam’s voice was still failing and he coughed to overcome the lump in his throat. “I… I mean _everything_ , what I told you what should change in… how we interact.”

His mind somehow processed the aggressive stance Dean was suddenly adopting, but his instincts refused to understand the danger.

 _I need to function._ His legs didn’t want to obey though, nothing worked, his limbs were … numb. Just like his mind.

“Why are you saying that?”

Dean’s voice was menacing, as was his look, yet nothing activated a flight response in Sam. Something had to be done, though, or this situation would spiral out of control completely. Breathing in, Sam summoned all the courage that was left in him.

“Because obviously _I_ can’t tell the difference between what’s…” Sam began and searched for words. Oh God, how could he phrase this? “What’s brotherly or friendly and…” He averted his eyes and turned away only to have his back collide with the wall again almost instantly.

“What?” Dean shouted, shaking Sam.

“Something… else.”

Wincing at his lame explanation, Sam braced up regardless. He needed to own up to what he had done, Dean deserved that, and going by the confusing mixture of sadness and desperation on Dean’s face, things were going downhill so quickly that there was barely time to stop this apocalypse.

“You’re fucking kidding me, aren’t you?” Dean shouted. “You said that I’d figure it out! That there was nothing to worry about!”

The words Sam was about to assemble in his mind collapsed like a house of cards. What?

“You said it was alright to go by what feels good,” Dean continued, his fingers still clutching Sam’s shirt. “That’s what I did. No matter what else happened, as long as it felt good, it’s how it’s supposed to be!”

Now he had to react somehow, Sam was convinced he read the situation correctly. “What?” he breathed because his mind was still blank, finding no connection whatsoever to Dean’s rambling. At least he let go now, stepping back to give Sam some space.

“And what do you want now? Huh?” Dean asked. “Go back to start? Pretend the last couple of days never happened?”

“No!” The word was out before Sam could reconsider and although he still couldn’t comprehend the reason for Dean’s outburst, the last option fell beyond the pale.

“You know what bugs me?” Dean narrowed his eyes again. _The wrath is back_ , Sam reckoned and one of his hands clenched into a fist. At least his defense mechanisms worked again. “When I said this might be strange, you tell me I’m wired all wrong!” Dean snarled. “And I thought maybe he’s right, maybe I have to change. And a bit of closeness after a year of Purgatory can’t be so bad, can it? So I rolled with it.” He paused to glower and a chill crept down Sam’s spine. “And it felt good, hell yeah it did. Too good at times, after such a year.”

Sam froze. His fist clenched so hard that his fingernails dug into the palm of his hand, but he only registered the pain peripherally.

Dean had been in Purgatory. Running, killing, running again. And then? Cas had been there as well, at the end, maximizing the danger around Dean, so that meant even more killing.

“Dean… shit, I’m… I’m sorry,” he stuttered.

“But I dealt with it, okay?” Dean took another step back. It seemed as if he hadn’t heard anything and that he was talking to himself.

“Dean…” Sam tried again.

“And now you’re telling me that I got it all wrong?” Dean snapped.

Sam searched for words and like before, he couldn’t find any. He had forced physical proximity on someone who was completely contact deprived, his conscience told him, but that didn’t cut to the chase, did it? What had Dean said? That he had rolled with it? What did that mean?

“You know what?” Dean interrupted Sam’s thoughts. “I’ll hit the road alone for a while. I think that’s best.”

He turned around to bolt out of the room, but Sam lurched forward and clutched one arm, then the other.

“Don’t go, please,” he implored. It was the only thing he really knew and he wouldn’t relinquish his hold. There wasn’t much resistance, though. A weak jerk of the shoulders and then Dean visibly deflated and looked to the side. He appeared smaller to Sam, torn and dejected.

 _Fragile_. But that wasn’t Dean. He was invincible, not vulnerable!

Sam opened his mouth to say sorry once more although he knew it wouldn’t make a difference. The stubborn blinking or the suspiciously bright eyes would drive Dean out of the room because he refused to show his weakness. He’d want to deal with it alone, like always, and not let himself be comforted. But how the fuck was that even possible nowadays, comforting Dean?

The thought almost mechanically induced activity and Sam decided to try for a hug, no matter if it worked, he just knew he had to overcome his passivity. Perform a gesture that meant something. Energetically, he pulled Dean nearer and bent down, but Dean turned his head so their noses bumped into each other.

A puff of breath and everything came to a standstill.

Had their lips grazed? Hadn’t they? Sam’s mind reeled, connecting to the spark that had thrown him off track just minutes ago because wow, bridging the small distance would be so easy now. Too easy. Simply touch down. _Just like that_ … _yes_ … and fleetingly feel the softness, pliant under light pressure… the warmth…

Sam ripped his eyes open, terror in every bone. Falling apart like opposite poles, they stared at each other for what felt like an eternity before Dean spun around and stormed out of the room.

“Fucking hell!” Sam shouted and kicked the nightstand over to the sound of the Impala’s squealing tires.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also this week's instalment was made possible by my lovely beta daydreamernv :D


	10. Chapter 10

 

“But you’ll drive home before you drink that, right?”

Dean counted his money and then left the liquor store without so much as looking at the needlessly worried clerk. The bottles rattled and clinked in the paper bags and yeah, that was the kind of music he needed.

Just ten miles to the cabin. Eight miles from the gas station. Two miles up the winding path. _There_.

His tunnel vision expanding just slightly at the sight of the cabin, Dean grabbed the bags from the passenger seat and headed for his sanctuary. Not even making a slight detour to the kitchen, he marched to the couch and settled down.

 _No one with a serious approach to drinking needs a glass,_ he thought when he unscrewed a bottle of whiskey. And he was serious, damn right, because the drive had been the most unbearable eight hours of sobriety in his entire life. Adding to the minute at noon was the rest of the day of staring at the road, unsuccessfully suppressing that minute.

However, now he was going to wipe out this day including its remaining hours and possibly erase the following day too. Or his entire memory, who knows?

Dean smiled at the bottle and then took a large swig. The booze burned its way down his throat and yup, for a second his mind had been occupied with the well-known rush. That was more like it, Dean decided and the next time, he didn’t stop but just continued to swallow, gulping down the liquid until a tickle in his throat forced him to stop.

Coughing violently, he noticed the alcohol taking effect in his bloodstream and his head already swam a little. Great, that was a promising beginning, and a look at the bottle showed that he was halfway through. Unsteady hands? Also a good sign.

“Three cheers to oblivion,” he said with a mock salute before he positioned the bottle at his lips again.

 

*****

 

 _Where… am I? What…?_ Dean turned his head and nausea hit him full force. _Not going to be sick…_

After the queasiness subsided a little, Dean dared to open his eyes. _Couch. Good._ And his body? Was it his at all? Because it felt foreign somehow, as if it was screaming at him – his head the loudest!

Dean ran the mental checklist for alcohol poisoning. Nope, his body temperature seemed alright and he could still breathe, so the chances were high that it was just a hangover. After passing out, but still.

The best sign was that he didn’t have to vomit. Dean let his feet slip off the couch and sat up, yet the moment he straightened, his stomach turned, giving him no option but to sprint to the door. The rain hit his face when he ran down the stairs and he even made it behind the cabin before the hiccups turned to retching and his stomach expelled its content.

Spitting and heaving, Dean tried to get the sour fluid out of his mouth, and damn, who would’ve thought that the digestion of whiskey tasted so revolting? Thankfully he hadn’t eaten anything or the acid would have been garnished with chunks of food.

“Son of a bitch!” Dean swore. With some effort, he opened his trousers and got out his dick to relieve himself. Good thing it was raining. Nature’s street sweeper.

The raindrops were already starting to drip from his nose, so he made his way back to the entrance. It wasn’t half bad that it was overcast. The sun would have killed him right now.

 _God, when was the last time I had to puke my guts out like that?_ he wondered. Must have been years.

The pain in his middle reminded him that his body had started to resent such treatment lately and, to appease it, he poured himself a glass of the cabin’s water. Tasted like licking an iron pan, but buying bottled water had not come to his mind the day before.

Or getting food.

Out of alternatives, he ate crackers and even found a bag of beef jerky. Together with the water he had something like a breakfast although his watch showed that it was already afternoon.

 _So it’s a late lunch,_ he thought to himself and combined the next cracker with pain meds. Not exactly healthy, but effective. Easy to imagine Sam’s face if he had been confronted with the combination. 

Dean swallowed the food with some difficulty. He wouldn’t think of Sam, not after successfully poisoning the past twenty-four hours. Hell and Purgatory, those memories came in handy now, images of mutilation and agony always wiped out everything.

A dose of deadly terror taking hold of his mind called for support, though. Dean went back to the couch and finished an almost empty bottle in one pull before opening another one. For a complete erasure he needed more.

More of the alcohol, of the feeling of the bottle and not of… _Sam’s lips._

He drugged the all too clear image by drinking as if he was dying of thirst, stopping only when his stomach protested vehemently. He paused, deliberating about finishing the rest, but before he could continue, a sound from outside distracted him.

 _Had that been a car?_ Dean reached into his jacket and grabbed his knife, yet the characteristic steps on the porch made him relinquish his hold. Shit, no demon…

Despite the deactivated trackers, Sam had found him. Much earlier than Dean had hoped because what was the likelihood of him returning to the cabin, as much as he had bitched about it? For Sam’s fucking investigative skills that didn’t seem too far-fetched, obviously.

Dean sighed and, not two seconds later, the tall blurry form in the door did the same.

“Really, Dean? That’s your solution?”

Hearing his voice was so good, flitted through Dean’s head before his dangerously deteriorating wits quelled the thought. He placed the bottle on the coffee table. That had been too much alcohol in too little time for sure, but it didn’t help with the anger that surged up at the self-righteous tone of Sam’s voice.

 _The fucker!_ Sam was in no position whatsoever to… yeah, what exactly? Dean tried to form a sensible thought, but failed. Being scrutinized by the idiot who had caused all of this wasn’t on his list, though, so he got up and directed his unsteady steps to the door.

“I need to get out,” he slurred and elbowed Sam out of the way.

Going for a walk was a lousy idea. At first, he staggered toward a rock formation that he remembered and when it never showed, he just went on directionless. Who cared?

Not Sam, it seemed. He had dogged him from the cabin, always a couple of yards behind Dean, who regretted not taking the bottle with him most of all.

“Look, Dean, I can’t think of an explanation, not even for myself,” Sam called.

Dean didn’t even turn his head around. An explanation! Yeah, that would change everything… it would drag the fucking elephant into every room they’d be in from now on.

Fortunately, Sam stayed silent after that and Dean concentrated on what he saw in front of him. Shrubs, fallen trees, thorny blackberries tearing at his jeans, that goddamn rock formation… hell, he was getting sober again, so it was high time to return to the cabin. The light was fading anyway and with no alcohol this exercise was plain stupid.

Yet the light buzz brought him back to the cabin and there, his whiskey waited for him. He sat down on the couch and took a sip, and another, and then another before the rhythm was brusquely interrupted when the bottle was snatched from his hand.

“Hey!” Dean protested.

“Drink that,” Sam said and placed a mug with what looked like coffee on the table.

Dean looked up, catching a small glimpse of Sam, but it was enough to bring back all the unbidden images. He tried to prevent them from resurfacing by taking sips of the hot coffee that burned his tongue enough to take his mind off of them a little. But definitely not enough to make his rage stay away.

How could Sam do something like that? Yeah, right, he didn’t have an explanation. What a fucking easy way out!

So Sam didn’t want to deal with the situation? _Then why should I?_ Dean thought to himself and put the mug on the table. He grabbed a blanket from the couch before he got up.

“I’ll sleep in the car,” he announced and left the cabin without giving Sam another glance. In the car, the familiar smell calmed him down although the blanket was too thin and he knew he was in for a chilly night.

The passenger door opened. “That’s idiotic,” Sam said and plunked down into the seat.

Hell, why couldn’t he let it rest! “ _You’re_ telling me what’s idiotic?” Dean muttered in the direction of the steering wheel.

“Look, I’m sorry, I…”

“Sam, sorry can’t cover it,” Dean interjected. “Not _that_!”

“Why?”

Had he really asked that? Dean clutched the wheel to give his anger an outlet and he was afraid he’d break it. “What was so…?” Sam continued slowly.

“Of all the things you could have done!” Dean exploded. “Why _that_?”

“It was an accident of sorts, goddammit!”

 _Is he out of his mind?_ Dean turned his head and was slightly relieved because Sam looked highly uncomfortable and not one bit as nonchalant as his voice had sounded. And it had not been an accident! At first, yes, but the contact afterwards? Never! And it didn’t matter how fleetingly brief it was!

“It was not the smartest move, granted,” Sam admitted and seemed to ponder something.

Dean could barely form words. “Are you crazy? You’re my _brother_!” he bellowed, but Sam ignored him.

“And what did you mean by ‘of all the things you could have done’?” he asked.

“I dunno, everything else… we could’ve explained away!” Dean shouted, glowering at Sam. “Getting a bit of relief, sexual frustration, helping a guy out, whatever! But _this_!”

He struggled out of the damn blanket and bolted out of the car.

“You mean that if I’d grabbed your… your dick, we’d be fine now?” Sam yelled behind him and he managed to enter the cabin before Dean could slam the door in his face. Goddammit!

“You know what I mean!” Smashing a mug didn’t add anything to cooling him down, so Dean searched for a better victim, but was forcefully spun around before he could spot anything.

“Would you come to your senses already?” Sam shook him.

“After everything you… did, now _this_!” Dean said, refusing to look Sam in the eye.

“All the other unforgivable things, you mean?” Sam asked incredulously. “Like getting hooked on demon blood? Ruby? Forgetting about you and living my life while you rotted in Purgatory? _Those_ things?”

“No, of course not…” Dean started evasively but then fell silent. He couldn’t think straight.

Sam let him go. “Then what?”

Dean compressed his lips and felt his jaw working.  

“What?” Sam snapped. “You wish you were in Purgatory again? Where everything’s clear, all black and white?”

“Now that you’re saying it!” Dean gave back and it felt right and utterly wrong at the same time. He took a deep breath, but the conflicting impressions increased tenfold, tearing at him to the level of physical pain.

He needed to get out!

“Dean, no!” he heard when he stormed toward the car, but this time Sam wasn’t fast enough. Dean stepped on the gas and almost backed up into the van Sam had arrived in. Annoyed, he changed course and raced down the winding path until he reached the main road.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Slamming his hands on the steering wheel, Dean accelerated. “I’m not drunk enough for this shit!” Or sober enough.

Whatever. He had to get away fast. Because this was all fucked up and he needed to establish a healthy distance to Sam. Spanish-coast-of-the-Atlantic far away, or further.

Dean felt his heartbeat accelerate in step with the speedometer. Away. From Sam. Right? Right?

 _No!_ He jammed on the brakes and jerked the wheel around, almost sending the car into the guardrail. His muddled thoughts didn’t totally process what was going on, just that being separated from Sam wouldn’t do, not again! But going into the cabin?

Dean parked the car a hundred yards away from the house to get out and walk into the woods. He felt like a sleepwalker although the light drizzle should have awakened him.

A life without Sam? Unbearable.

The trees became denser and Dean stopped. Leaning against a tree, he slid down to coil himself up and bury his head in his arms. Humidity crept through his clothes until his skin became chilly all over, but it felt good being reduced to physical discomfort.

All that was missing was a drink. Or a lobotomy, something of that sort. _I can’t…_

A twig snapped and Dean gave a start. Before he could move though, he was staring into the barrel of a gun.

“Jesus, Dean, what are you doing here?” Sam asked and holstered the weapon.

Dean blinked in the flashlight. “I had to leave,” he said because it was the thought he had repeated most often in his head, completely forgetting where it had come from in the first place.

“Bullshit. Now get inside, the rain’s getting heavier.”

Dean let himself be pulled up and ushered toward the cabin. Inside, Sam maneuvered him to a chair, pushed him into it and threw a shirt and jeans on the table.

“You’re soaked.”

“I know,” Dean answered, but he couldn’t or didn’t want to move, it was impossible to say which. Signaling that he would stay felt as unacceptable as leaving.

“God, Dean!” Sam shouted and threw up his hands. “This has to stop, okay? We’re going back to before this all started, you hear me?”

“No problem.” He hadn’t intended to lace his voice with so much irony.

“Dean! Listen!” Sam implored. He pulled over a chair to sit down opposite Dean. “Forget that I… We were wound up, overexcited, and it just happened…” Sam paused to clear his throat. “Yesterday… it didn’t mean anything.”

Dean felt dejection ripping a black hole into him and he was sure he hadn’t felt that dead in Purgatory and Hell combined. What was wrong with him? This was what he had wanted to hear, wasn’t it?

Sam made a face. “So we’re good?”

Shakily, Dean inhaled. He could do this. “Sure, we’re good.”

With all the conviction he could muster up, he looked Sam in the eye and Sam bought it, he really did, because he just nodded and got up, prepared for bed and slept. Calm, methodical. _Like before._

For a while, Dean tried to do the same, but after an hour of tossing and turning on the couch, he got up and raided his stash of bottles. They had agreed on going back, hadn’t they?

 _The weapon of choice against the demons in my head_. Dean unscrewed the bottle and then slowly, the world sank into insignificance until there was just darkness. He wanted to sleep forever, stay away from goddamn reality, but at some point, the alcohol and the sun shining through the windows compelled him to wake up again.

Something was wrong, though. The cabin was empty and the bag Sam had placed next to the bunk bed was gone.

“Sam?” he called. Pushing himself off the couch was an ordeal, just like crossing the room to the entrance. Dean stepped outside. “Sam.”

It wasn’t even a question anymore. He knew the van was gone.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Three cheers to daydreamernv!


	11. Chapter 11

Sam lifted a finger and the shot glass in front of him was refilled. He knocked back the whiskey and immediately ordered another one which the bartender duly delivered.

It was nice to be known. If he was honest, he felt almost at home in the bar after three days. The music wasn’t half bad either, as long as he wasn’t too drunk to stop caring anyway. Roughly from midnight on, nothing really mattered. He was glad he found the way back to the motel at that time, and the car? Well, he really didn’t need it any longer.

 _Should get rid of it,_ he thought. _It’s just a pile of junk._ He had bought it at a scrapyard after returning the van to the rental company and, miraculously, it had survived two days of driving. Now it stood parked on the parking lot of the motel and hadn’t been moved in days.

The bar wasn’t that far away. Some blocks down the main road of a featureless town in the middle of nowhere. Perfect for a vacation of the high-proof kind. Nothing took his mind off the main pursuits of sleeping, eating, and returning to the bar once it opened.

Tiredly, Sam sipped at the drink. _It’s no surprise that Dean thinks this helps,_ he mused because it made him so sick each night that he could barely function. Even the dead weight of his cellphone in his jacket didn’t bother him anymore.

_Perhaps I should switch it on and check my messages? After all those days…_

Deciding against it, Sam gulped down the rest of the whiskey. Just four or five shots and he wouldn’t think of Dean any longer, so the only trick was to keep up drinking. Ironic, really, that he was picking up the patterns that had made him leave in the first place.

He lifted his hand again, but before the bartender could pour the whiskey a hand covered the glass.

Sam frowned. He knew that hand.

“You should know better than to get between a man and his alcohol,” he said, not taking his eyes off the counter. A stool was pulled close and the hand that had protected the glass now beckoned the barkeeper to come nearer.

“Has he been here every night?” _that voice_ wanted to know. Dean’s voice.

“Ask him,” the man answered.

“I’m asking _you_.” A threatening undertone.

“Three nights, agent.”

Of course Dean had flashed a badge! What about cutting out the passive-aggressive mode for a change?

“Any incidents?” Dean asked.

“No, just a regular customer. Why?”

“Doesn’t matter, now bring him a coffee. Strong.”

Sam could hear the suppressed anger resonating in the words, so he drank the coffee because dealing with Dean after even more alcohol? That only worked for, well, Dean. And the fact that anger radiated off of Dean so noticeably that it wasn’t even necessary to look at him made it painfully clear that nothing had changed.

_But it’s my fault._

“Ready to go?” The question sounded more like an order and Sam couldn’t help staging at least a semblance of opposition.

“No.”

“Well, then I’ll haul your ass outta here,” Dean snarled under his breath. “That better?”

Sam didn’t move. One of his hands lay on the counter, almost rooted to it, and the other still held the cup. Leaving his sanctuary just wouldn’t do. Sure, he hadn’t even bothered to ask the barkeeper for his name or to get to know even one of the patrons, but this place had kept him somewhat sane in the prior days. And besides, he felt guilty enough about his mistake, he didn’t need to go on and on about it! It was a kiss, yes, but it had been a fucking accident!

“I mean it!” Now the threat was very pronounced and Dean was obviously prepared to cause a scene. Son of a bitch!

Abruptly, Sam shot up and pulled some bills from his pocket to throw them on the counter. It was too much for what he had drunk, but who cared. The price he would pay for that other rash action would be heavier.

In oppressive silence, they walked toward the motel, so the worst was yet to come, Sam reckoned. The slamming of the door once they had entered Sam’s room served as a fitting prelude.

“And now you’d better come up with a good explanation why you just up and left!” Dean shouted.

Opening his mouth and shutting it again, Sam paused. What was this about? He raised his head and looked at Dean for the first time since he had showed up. The voice had sounded angry, granted, but Dean? He had bags under his eyes and his hair was unkempt, lying flat and forming a strange little fringe.

“What? I wrote you a note, didn’t I?” Sam said. “That you were right and that we’d better be off alone for–”

“The hell you did! I woke up and you were gone!” Dean interrupted him and started pacing the room.

“But didn’t you read…?” Sam tried again, but he was shut down immediately.

“There was no fucking note!” Dean repeated.

“Well, but I _did_ write you one, so maybe it was blown off the table, what do I know?” How stupid could this even become? Sam huffed in annoyance. “No reason to treat me like a goddamn child and drag me out of that bar!”

“You just left! And I couldn’t even track your phone!” Dean came nearer, danger flashing in his eyes. “I thought we were good!”

Sam opened his mouth to let out a laugh, but it got stuck somewhere on the way. An incredulous gasp was all he exhaled at the end. Dean had to be joking!

“What are…?” Sam shook his head. “Do you even realize what you’re doing?”

“Me? What the hell am _I_ doing?”

And there, the accusation was back, caused by _one_ crazy misstep. _I’m not going to explain that again._

“You…” Sam fidgeted under Dean’s stare regardless, but pulled himself together. “You pace… you drink, you pass out on the couch, you… you’re…” Sam turned his head away.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Dean said sarcastically. “Afterlife wasn’t the holiday I expected.”

“And you’re entitled to grief!” Sam glowered at Dean. “Because that’s human, Dean, and not a weakness. That applies to _everything_ that happened!”

“Good we cleared that up,” Dean said in the same tone as before, but Sam ignored it.

“What I can’t deal with is that you try to live through this like you always do. Shutting people out, seeking salvation in a bottle. That’s a whole lotta crap, Dean,” Sam growled, stepped forward and used his height advantage. It would make Dean even more pissed off, good! “And that’s why I left. Because now that I know that just sitting down on the couch and letting you lean on me would make you instantly fall asleep, I can’t keep a distance and watch your misery,” Sam said gravely. “I can’t, Dean.”

The grip on his jacket and the hard shove against the wall weren’t really a surprise. Sam let himself be manhandled, hoping that Dean’s rage would get an outlet.

“And then you just leave? For good?” Okay, rage was an understatement, Sam thought and grabbed Dean’s jacket as well. Things could get ugly because that was _fury_. “Without saying goodbye, tossed me out of your life. Again!”

“That’s what _you_ are doing!” Sam exclaimed. “Only I have to sit by and watch!”

His head knocked against the wall when Dean pushed him back again and that was it, _goddammit, I’m not nine years old anymore!_ Sam swung Dean around hard to give him an idea what it felt like to be a punching ball and yeah, that hit home!

“It’s your fucking fault!” Dean snarled and Sam knew what to expect, but he didn’t really put up a serious fight when he was hauled forward and then slammed into the wall once more.

“Always my fucking fault, what else!” Sam responded. “Yeah, sure, I deserve it. But you deserve it too!” He tried to shake Dean off.

“I would’ve been good if you hadn’t started all that other bullshit!” Dean barked, trying to keep his balance.

“You haven’t been good in a _decade_!”

That had been low. Sam didn’t know where the words had come from, but he considered the best reaction would be to duck because he expected nothing short of a direct blow for them. “You fucker!” Dean swore, but pushed Sam against wall so hard that he saw stars.

Using his already hunched posture, Sam shot forward and grabbed Dean’s waist to throw him, while Dean directed them both to the side, stumbling over a chair at the same time. Sam tried to work against their fall, but all he achieved was that he landed on his ass, his head bumping into the wall yet another time.

He had even pulled Dean’s full weight astride him, knees preventing him from escaping right and left. Fuck, that’s it, he thought when Dean’s lower arm immediately squeezed his windpipe.

“You goddamn son of a bitch!” Dean growled. It had a different ring to it than before, although Sam couldn’t really tell, as he was busy gasping for air. Surely Dean could press harder, but for some reason he remained poised like that, staring past Sam.

“Dean?” Sam rasped. The only reaction was that Dean slumped forward, his forehead leaning against the wall, his labored breathing by no means a calming soundtrack.

“Dean?”

The arm’s pressure on Sam’s windpipe lessened.

“I don’t know… what…” A whisper that became hoarse at the end. “Sammy… don’t go, please…”

Sam froze. Dean didn’t beg. Never.

“Please, Sammy, I can’t…”

Desperately, Sam tried to hold on to his anger. This was a fight, he had to stand his ground. A choked up voice wouldn’t make him give up. It wouldn’t! Even if all that remained of his rage was the almost irresistible urge to pull down Dean’s arm and enfold Dean in an embrace, and hell, if that was a comfort for them both, he would simply do it!

Relentlessly working against the tension and the taut muscles that were almost shaking, Sam freed his throat. “It’s alright,” he said and shuffled away from the wall to get closer. With some difficulty, he brushed off the picture his mind painted of them and that the last move had brought Dean into his lap for good. “It’s all right,” he repeated to himself. He was not going to freak out. Not when the arm that had choked him earlier wormed itself around his neck and the other one enfolded his middle. He didn’t flinch, not once.

Exhaling, Sam stroked Dean’s back and then let one of his hands run through Dean’s irritatingly soft hair. “Don’t worry,” he said and buried his nose in Dean’s collar. His heartbeat slowed down, but just for a degree because…yeah… _it_ would follow even now, wouldn’t it? That inescapable reaction to more proximity.

Or could he put a stop to it? Sam monitored his body’s answers, feeling like a pervert for doing so, but despite his hyperawareness, just the feeble rubbing of their crotches was enough. Whatever terrible scenarios he conjured up in his mind to distract himself, there was no way to prevent his dick from stiffening, and God, how awkward was that?

But what had Dean said? That he had rolled with it. Closing his eyes, Sam reasoned himself into allowing his reaction because it was just physical after all. He felt Dean respond in kind and, as a result, try to withdraw, so Sam clutched him closer because this time, there would be no chickening out by either of them.

It felt too good at times, Dean had said. Sam inhaled, his fingers digging into Dean’s back. Yeah, definitely too good. Warm, and that cursed friction against his crotch making it even warmer by the second…God, how he needed to get rid of his jacket! Which was absolutely out of the question…

Dean moved just the slightest bit and Sam suppressed a gasp. Simmering arousal rocketed, turning into fierce lust so quickly that Sam’s mind spun. _Calm down!_ he commanded himself. Dean had dealt with this! But how? Thinking about their sparring almost two weeks ago and Dean’s freakout, it had been just as tough for him too, Sam guessed, and sweat started to collect on his forehead.

 _Calm the fuck down!_ This was about giving Dean some comfort and whatever the circumstances, it worked at the moment. Dean was slacking off and that damned erection didn’t count as tension. Or as anything… else…

It was just there. Like all the other synchronous patterns; like their breathing, their chins resting on the other one’s shoulder. The hands that were not actually wandering but didn’t remain still. Just holding on, feeling that Dean was there, his heartbeat, his scent…

Sam drank in the impressions and when Dean heaved a sigh and lessened his embrace a little, Sam couldn’t draw back. Just a little longer, another moment of intimacy before the bewildering mixture of comfortable warmth and stimulating heat would turn cold again.

With a willing effort of logical reasoning Sam broke up their entanglement and let himself be pulled up, their hands quickly letting go again.

 _Don’t look down,_ Sam reminded himself and held Dean’s gaze.

“We should get a bit of shuteye,” Dean said and nodded at the only bed. “I’m gonna get myself a room.”

 _You can stay!_ The thought fortunately didn’t make it into words, but its force had Sam cough to hide his discomfort. “I’ll do a bit of research. Perhaps I’ll find a case,” Sam said and Dean shrugged.

“Then I’ll grab sandwiches from the diner next door tomorrow morning and if you dig up something, we can get going pronto.”

Sam nodded. “But get some rest, okay? You look tired. Give yourself a break.”

“Sure. Night then,” Dean said and left the room.

The door closed and Sam kept looking at it, unable to comprehend what had just happened. He awkwardly arranged his dick that was still a long way from being completely soft. 

This was insane. From the dry-rutting to the casual goodbye, all of it was complete madness.

Sam tore his eyes away from the door. He fetched the laptop from the table and sat down on the bed. He wouldn’t think about what it all meant.

One step at a time. Just like Dean had done it. Freak out, deal with it, then deal with it some more, Sam thought and smiled. His hand stroked the empty space next to him in anticipation of someone who wasn’t there.

Madness, plain and simple. But at least it was _theirs._

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...and a hug for daydreamernv!


	12. Chapter 12

Dean shot up, his eyes springing open. He had to get up! Find Sam!

Breathing heavily, he listened. Again there was no sound but his racing heart. Sam was gone. Sam was…

_Sam’s five doors away._

Finally, Dean’s brain kicked into gear again, replaying the events of the previous night. Sam was back and he would stay. Things were good.

Dean frowned. Briefly he doubted his own sanity, imagining himself in some deceptive scenario Hell had devised just to destroy him completely, but it had happened, hadn’t it? Things weren’t only good, they were pretty intense, to be honest. That moment when Sam had pulled him nearer and wow, had they been fucking hard!

A groan roused him and, shit, that’s mine, Dean thought, his slightly addled brain tracing his reaction. “Fuck!” he swore and snatched his hand away from his dick. What was wrong with him?

He got up to grab his trousers from the chair. It wasn’t that easy to put them on, with his erection still more prominent than he cared to admit, but he struggled into them regardless.

 _You’re quite a sicko._ Jerking off thinking about Sam. Although it hadn’t felt so strange, Dean admitted, but using Sam’s shower gel to spank the monkey didn’t count as a habit in that regard, did it?

Dean buttoned up his shirt. Who was he kidding? He had woken up next to Sam with a hard-on and jacked off a minute later. Gotten all hot and bothered sparring with Sam. That was completely normal behavior for sure.

“Yeah, right,” Dean said to himself and huffed out a sarcastic laugh. This was no aftermath of Purgatory or whatever bullshit he had made up. Oh hell no. This was him losing his shit completely, no doubt.

He went into the bathroom, squeezed some toothpaste on a brush and watched his reflection go through yet another of his morning routines.

 _You’re a creep,_ he thought, but continued brushing. For a revelation like that, he should look more worried, really, but nothing showed on his face. So perhaps he was too far gone or the usual mechanisms of repression took over.

 _Sam will know what to do,_ shot through Dean’s mind. Uncharted territory was Sam’s business and he always came up with a solution.

Dean spit out the foam and rinsed his mouth, giving his mirror self an encouraging grin when he was done.

Sam would lead the way, like before. Better get packed then.

Dean grabbed the travel kit and his laptop, folded a discarded t-shirt and briefly debated with himself if he should take the duffel with him. But Sam surely wouldn’t want to stay in this godforsaken town, so they would leave for sure.

He threw the bag into the Impala and headed to the diner to get sandwiches and coffee. Only in front of Sam’s door did his momentum fade slightly and it took him a minute to summon the courage to knock.

The door was opened by an unseen hand. Dean peeked inside the room.

“Hey, morning,” he said and out of nowhere, Sam appeared with his duffel. He had fetched it from behind the door, it seemed.

“Hey,” Sam said and nodded at the food. “You wanna eat here or in the car?”

“Does that mean you found a case?” Dean asked.

“Sure did.” He seemed anxious to leave. “I just sent you the coordinates.”

“Well, then let’s hit the road.” Dean motioned toward the car. “But we eat the food on the hood, okay? There are enough goddamn crumbs in every nook and cranny!”

“Fine with me,” Sam said and downstairs they went. Dean watched his brother walk, duffel shouldered, a little bounce in his step. He seemed to be in a good mood alright, but that was it. Friendly, but careful. There had been no sign of, well, what?

The previous night, shortly before he went away to ask for a room, it had been the same. So what was supposed to happen now anyway?

Sam stuffed his duffel in the footwell of the backseat and then held out his hand for the coffee. “They found mauled bodies and raided graves. Perhaps a ghoul?”

“Maybe, yeah,” Dean said. He gave Sam a coffee and the bag with that blasted cheese and arugula sandwich. They sat down on the cold hood of the Impala and chewed, and it was peaceful and amicable and what not, everything was just peachy!

At least the pastrami spiced up the situation – that was until Sam brushed Dean’s hand when he gathered the cups and napkins for the trash. It was an accident, though, wasn’t it?

Sam smiled, went to the trash can and then occupied the passenger seat. So still nothing.

Deciding that he would give himself an aneurysm if he thought about each gesture and every facial expression, Dean got behind the steering wheel and started the engine, forbidding himself to even look at Sam for the first ten miles.

Sam would make a move. He had said it was alright, he hadn’t withdrawn when things got a little heated – rather the opposite! So that was what he wanted. 

Was it? Dean searched for something along the always similar country roads that would give him an answer. Sam surely wouldn’t because, despite the coffee, he had started dozing off after a couple of miles. Too much research.

Last night had been different, or hadn’t it? Dean wondered. Or did come down to two males with a pathetic love life finding solace in each other?

And the kiss hadn’t meant anything. Of course it hadn’t…

 _Hold it!_ Dean ordered himself. _Aneurysm!_ Which was not advisable while driving. And perhaps Sam would wake up and start talking or at least find some goddamn gum in the glove box!

Dean reached over and, after some rummaging around, fished out a flattened pack of spearmint gum. It got him through the following three hundred miles of silence, but when the sun stood highest in the sky, he couldn’t take it any longer. It was time for a break.

The location accommodated him as the road crossed an old drawbridge, so Dean swerved onto a gravelly area right in front of the bridge rather roughly, shaking Sam awake as a result.

“I’m gonna stretch my legs,” he announced and grabbed a soda from the backseat before he got out of the car. The railing of the bridge seemed like a fitting destination, so Dean ambled to it and leaned against the rusty iron.

And, finally, Sam made a step, although technically he was only approaching Dean on the bridge. He assumed the same position against the railing, but not as close to Dean as he had insisted on lately. The soda hissed angrily when Sam opened it.

“Everything alright?” Dean asked. Sam stopped drinking and turned to him, his look heavy with … _something_ , Dean couldn’t really place it. The following smile was almost insecure, but seemed sincere.

“Sure. Want me to drive?” Sam raised his hand and then let it sink again. What had he wanted to touch? Or who? Or had he just wanted to collect trash again?

“Nah, I’m fine,” Dean answered. He felt a headache forming from all the needless thinking he had to do, so he was downright relieved when Sam pushed himself off the railing and started walking back to the car.

“Let’s drive on,” Sam just said in the direction of the Impala and Dean sent a silent curse after him. What the fuck was going on? That had definitely not been a sign of any sort.

In the ensuing hours of silence that Dean garnished with as much music as Sam’s sleep would tolerate, Sam mostly stared out of the passenger window when he was awake or googled tidbits about the landscape they were passing, doing his best to explain the beauty of fucking haystacks!

Dean tried not to grit his teeth too hard. Well, it had been like this before, he told himself, quelling the feeling that a heavy rock was compressing his chest. Perhaps they were going back to the beginning after all?

They stopped for coffee and Dean drank what he guessed was a gallon of it just to give himself something to do. The waiting would have killed him otherwise.

The caffeine didn’t help, he realized when, back in the car, his pulse drummed along with his impatience. The fact that he couldn’t even tell what exactly he was waiting for didn’t make things any easier.

At least they still had a job to do. When their destination came into view, Dean scanned for the only form of accommodation the internet had announced: a makeshift hotel above a gas station, that was all, and when they entered one of its shabby rooms, Dean wanted to leave again immediately.

“The sheriff is in the next town, there’s no real infrastructure around here,” Sam said and dumped his duffel on one of the beds.

“So footwork?” Dean asked.

“For today, yes.” Sam displayed another of his cursed sympathetic smiles and Dean could have kicked him for it. “I’ll ask around, you can take a nap.”

What? Dean looked at the room. He wouldn’t stay here. Before Sam could clear out, Dean beat him to it. “I’ll cover the north of the town, you the south.”

“Dude, that’s merely farmhouses!”

“Then take the car,” Dean said and fished the keys out of his pocket. He didn’t look back for confirmation and just threw them over his shoulder, sure that he wouldn’t hear them falling to the ground.

Being apart would be strange, yeah, but after a day like this, it would also be a welcome change. And for the first couple of yards down the road, the tension really eased, Dean’s neck and shoulder muscles relaxing for the first time in hours.

 _I’m gonna give myself a stroke if I continue like this,_ he thought, stoutly ignoring the bar he passed. A beer sounded like heaven now. And he would most likely get information in such a place, although together with Sam he wouldn’t look so suspicious. It was always good to have a wingman, who knew what kind of clientele the bars in this dump attracted?

And perhaps Sam would loosen up. Carry on with whatever …

Dean stopped dead in his tracks. He was on a job, he didn’t need Sam and he would definitely put an end to the mind games he was playing with himself. Turning on his heels, he then marched back to the heavy wooden door that promised entertainment of the simple kind, and the exterior hadn’t lied because the dark joint was exactly what Dean had expected: blue-collar patrons scattered around small tables or lined up at the bar, a rather reduced selection of spirits and curious eyes on him that quickly turned toward the beers in front of them when they didn’t connect with a familiar face.

Dean scanned the room and decided for the end of the bar, near enough to the exit in case things didn’t develop as planned.

“Hey handsome,” a female voice greeted him. “New in town?”

Dean swiveled around on the stool he had just occupied. Okay, she wasn’t part of the plan either, but one had to be flexible, right? The other guests weren’t paying her any attention, which was rather strange because the way she sat down on the stool next to him, back to the bar and supporting her elbows on it to present her cleavage, she was clearly a sight to behold.

“Quite, yeah.” He considered showing her the badge but decided against it. “But even I can tell that you’re wrong in a place like this.”

“My father owns the bar. I was just checking some stuff.” She smiled. “Finished checking, though.”

“So you’re up for a beer?”

She nodded and Dean raised his hand. “Beers for me and my lovely guest.”

“Susan.”

“For Susan,” Dean corrected and gave her a wide smile. “I’m Dean.”

“Nice to meet you, Dean.”

“Oh, it’s my pleasure.”

The beers arrived and Dean tried his. Decent.

And Susan? Also decent, to put it mildly. Shoulder length dark brown hair a little on the curly side. A body that spoke of exercise. Face, well, conventionally attractive, but with lively dark eyes that knew how to wink suggestively.

“So you’re here on business?” she asked.

“Yeah, visiting a customer. But this place doesn’t seem to be so ordinary, from what I’ve heard,” he offered carefully. “The dead and the living ending up on the coroner’s table.”

She made a face. “Five bodies from the graveyard first and then they found that old couple murdered in their house. Jeez, who does that?”

It was clearly her cue to present her own theories about the story, mostly fed by TV tropes and wild fantasies, but Dean let her talk in case something interesting turned up. It didn’t, though, but after what felt like hours, she casually placed her hand on his arm and hello, that was _his_ cue, so he leaned a bit nearer and produced his signature grin.

As a direct result, the one-sided conversation became slightly more personal, Dean not doing anything but nodding or inclining his head at regular intervals. What he learned was that it was obviously hard to find a partner if you were the daughter of the owner of the only bar in town and there was a lot of resentment because of her lifestyle or whatever, Dean stopped paying attention at some point until, suddenly, the hand on his arm disappeared.

“You know, I just realized that I’m still on my break,” Susan announced. “I shouldn’t spend it at my workplace, don’t you agree?”

“You’re doing your father’s business wrong,” Dean said. “It’s not half bad.”

She got up and bent down to whisper in his ear. “But my apartment’s a lot cozier.”

That was his pointer. He knew how to react. “It sure is,” he said, but had to force out the rest, “why don’t you give me a tour?”

Hesitation? What the hell? Dean couldn’t stop wondering about himself when he followed her out of the bar. She was nice, she smelled good and she had what turned out to be a rather great place just a few houses down the road.

And her disappearing in the bathroom? A very promising sign. So he was going to see some action today, after the sitting and waiting and brooding. Hell, he deserved a diversion!

Fiddling with a porcelain duck from the living room’s sideboard, Dean tried to get his restlessness under control, but only when the head broke off did he process his surroundings again. Basically he was still working, wasn’t he? Of course he had found out _something_ , yet no crucial piece of information had been among the ramblings of his host.

Dean opened a drawer and hid the broken figurine in it. He couldn’t just bow out of work, right? The investigation first, then the fun, yeah, that was it, he decided and scribbled an excuse on the notepad on the fridge. Perhaps he could continue with this here later?

“Fuck,” he swore when he closed the entrance door behind him. Of course he wouldn’t return! He would let this opportunity pass, and for what? What the fuck was going on?

Dean rubbed his face and tried to focus. “Concentrate!” he ordered himself, but his whirling thoughts led nowhere. They just whipped on his heartrate and if he hadn’t known better, he would have said that panic was setting in, which was impossible!

He leaned against the wall, afraid to climb down the stairs because they looked as if they twisted and changed in height. The ground swayed, or maybe it was him, holy shit, he was really having a panic attack, he was…

The ringing and whirring of his phone ripped him out of his confusion, but only so much that his hand automatically reached into his pocket.

“Hello?” he rasped.

_“Mr. DeLeo?”_

Dean made a desperate attempt to get his mental faculties together. “Yes, yes, this is Charles DeLeo,” he responded.

 _“Sunderton Memorial Hospital,”_ the female voice said. _“I’m afraid that your colleague Agent Weiland has been admitted. His identification said that you’re his emergency contact.”_

“Admitted? What?” Dean blurted out. Fuck fuck no! “What’s … How is he?” he got out at last.

 _“Don’t worry, he is stable, but he has been involved in a rather unfortunate accident,”_ she explained.

“What?” Dean repeated. The adrenaline that had previously fueled his puzzlement now set off every alarm. “Where can I find him?”

_“The internal medicine ward. Visiting times are…”_

Dean hung up. He rushed downstairs and down the road, looking up the address of the hospital while running. It was a couple of miles away, a ten minute drive … shit, wait, Sam had taken the car!

What about a taxi? But where the fuck would he get a taxi in this dump?

Dean scanned the street for an old car to hot-wire and selected Sam’s number at the same time. The ringing went on and on and when Dean was almost ready to end the call, someone answered it after all.

_“Yes.”_

Dean stopped. It was Sam alright! “Sammy! What happened?”

 _“Lost a bit of blood, had a transfusion,”_ Sam said as if it was the most normal thing in the world. There was no inflection in his voice. As if he was talking to a stranger.

“What does that mean ‘lost a bit of blood’? Don’t tell me you went against a ghoul alone!”

 _“Seemed like a productive way to pass my time,”_ Sam gave back. _“And I killed it, didn’t I? So everything’s fine. I’ll be back tomorrow.”_

“But I…”

 _“I said I’m fine. Now back off!”_ Sam barked and then mumbled: _“See you tomorrow.”_

Just like that, the line went dead.

“What the fuck!” Dean shouted and marched toward the old pickup truck parked next to a crumbling building. It took less than a minute to hot-wire it and he covered the distance to the hospital so fast that the decrepit engine almost conked out.

Sneaking past the guard and the nurses wasn’t a great challenge, just like finding Sam’s room wasn't. A weak light was shining through the cracked door and Dean entered quietly, but not quietly enough for Sam not to notice him. So the fact that Sam kept staring at the wall meant that whatever was bugging him was still in effect.

Dean stepped nearer and suddenly Sam moved, holding out his arm.

“Now get it over with. But I’m not a ghoul.”

Feeling his hands clench into fists, Dean swallowed the anger that gripped him. This wasn’t why he had driven here! More out of professional duty than anything Dean reached into his jacket for the holy water and then sprinkled it on Sam’s hand. It dripped off without producing a reaction.

Sam snorted. “Had enough time to call the paramedics, so the rest is also fine.”

“Fine?” Dean felt like a fish out of water. “You can’t be serious!”

“I managed until now.” _That_ voice again. Completely devoid of emotion. “So get out.”

“But…” Dean started.

“You can go!”

Now there was emotion. Startled by the amount of hostility, Dean was on the verge of insisting on an explanation, but he bit back his words.

It was clear why Sam acted like that. Dean eased out of the door as quietly as he had come and stole out of the hospital. In the car, he had another look at the window of Sam’s room, but the lights were out.

 _I’m sorry I failed you,_ Dean thought. But what was new? He got sidetracked, had almost gotten Sam killed and was so caught up in his own bullshit that he didn’t even realize when everything was falling apart around him.

He tinkered with the cables and fortunately, the truck came to life again. Doubting that anyone had missed it, he parked it exactly where he had stolen it an hour ago and then went to the bar again. He wheedled two bottles of whisky out of the bartender, who at first didn’t want him to take them out on the street, but Dean conveyed his plan of drinking in peace convincingly.

The hotel room was a perfect venue. Squalid, dark, and after the first bottle the faded colors all blended into one. Dean staggered to the toilet and back, but when he returned he wasn’t sure that he hadn’t pissed in the shower.

His legs were so unsteady that he directed his steps to the bed again, grabbing the second bottle from the floor after he sat down.

Fucking springs and the swaying they produced! Dean tackled his queasiness with another half bottle and his vision narrowed to the point where he almost slumped off the bed.

But there had been a noise, right? Dean looked up, surprised to see a figure in the room, and he was about to reach for his knife when his brain sluggishly passed on the information that it was Sam.

“Whadda ya doin’ here?” Dean slurred.

Sam talked about a drip and the Impala, but Dean couldn’t understand a damn sentence. He attempted to stand up, but failed.

“You should sleep,” he heard and then Sam muttered something about … yeah, what? A system? What fucking system? “Now go to bed.”

The last words made sense again and Dean obeyed them groggily. “Sammy?” he mumbled, his mind already enveloped in sleep, dreaming that someone took off his jacket and shoes and rolled him over before placing his head on a pillow.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hugs and sunshine for daydreamernv


	13. Chapter 13

The sun had not yet risen completely. The passing cars’ light beams, split by the half-closed shutters, were still wandering over the ceiling, becoming more frequent in the wake of life outside slowly speeding up.

Sam rolled onto his side, but the pressboard dresser didn’t pose a superior view. Carefully, he sat up, making sure he wasn’t pushing his leg into the mattress. The wound still smarted a bit. He grabbed his laptop and swept out the internet’s usual corners, producing no result on Kevin or the tablet or anything even remotely related to that disaster waiting to happen. Yet if he was honest, he couldn’t bring himself to care much. There were too many other things on his mind.

Risking a first glance at Dean’s sleeping form, Sam sighed. “I’m sorry I brought this on us,” he said quietly and got up to fish for aspirin in his duffle and grab a bottle of water. He placed both on Dean’s nightstand.

“Are … are we leaving?” The voice was almost inaudible, yet with the last word, Dean stirred and opened his eyes, proving that he hadn’t spoken in his sleep.

“There’s no rush. You want coffee?”

Dean grunted, rolling on his back. “Oh sweet Jesus, yeah, please bring me coffee.” He rubbed his eyes and then pressed his lower arm on his forehead. “Ow man, fuck!”

“Pain meds are to your right.”

Sam left Dean blindly groping for the nightstand. The next minutes would be unbearable, with Dean bitching about his hangover like it was the first one ever, so Sam went downstairs, hoping that the gas station was open at this time of the day.

Coffee, bagels, chips and what could pass as a sandwich if one wasn’t too picky had to be enough. The selection represented about eighty percent of the little shop’s products anyway, the rest consisting of chocolate and gummi bears in all variations.

Not something Dean would touch in his condition.

When Sam returned to the room, the shower was running, so he reckoned that he had a bit of time to steel himself. Apologizing for sending Dean away should be first and then … Sam listened. Shit, the water had been turned off.

Quickly, he grabbed a coffee and a tuna sandwich and assumed an outwardly relaxed position on his bed.

“Holy crap,” Dean swore in the bathroom. “I need a different brain. This one here is just too painful.”

He entered the main room fully clothed, and if he avoided Sam or was just not able to look at anything in particular because of his hangover… Who knew? He steered toward the food and immediately took a bite of the bagel, but half a coffee later, he was still studying the floor.

“What about the … the injury?” Dean asked.

Sam tested the suture on his calf. “No problem. The ghoul cut my leg to bleed me out. Good thing, really, because then I could tell the paramedics I was hurt while investigating. Chopped myself with an axe trying to search that derelict house.”

“You clumsy oaf.” They snorted out an unconvincing laugh, but it was a beginning.

“They didn’t check my wrists,” Sam continued. “Didn’t see the burns from the ties.”

Stupid! he reprimanded himself the moment he had uttered the sentence. This was not the light topic that would produce another joke. Dean had fallen silent again, frowning.

“Look, Dean, I’m sorry I was so … rude ... to you yesterday,” Sam said and briefly stopped to think. “I was tired, I guess.” _What a lousy excuse._

But Dean seemed to exhale with relief before he cleared his throat and finally looked up. “I wasn’t there to help,” he said, knitting his brows. “You could’ve sent me a message.”

And in an instant, all the effort of maintaining a normal atmosphere was lost. Sam shrugged and turned toward the wall, afraid he would give away his agitation.

 _Why should I? You had better things to do,_ flashed through his mind regardless, rekindling the barely contained rage from the day before. Just a glimpse of Dean and that girl in the bar had shown exactly what those two would end up doing. All the obvious signs had been there.

And what if? Who cared? he had thought, and then had thrown himself into the clutches of a fucking ghoul!

Sam raised his head. “I managed, didn’t I?” he said, but it sounded hollow. Dean didn’t listen anyway and instead glanced around the room, as if searching for something.

“Yesterday,” he began and paused. “When you came back to the hotel. You said something, didn’t you?”

With bated breath, Sam waited for Dean to continue. It was impossible that he recalled that particular remark, he had been too wasted, hadn’t he? But Dean didn’t seem to give up and apparently wracked his brain.

“I don’t really remember,” Sam lied. “It wasn’t important, I guess.” It wasn’t! He had been angry and his body had been full of foreign fluids and pain meds. “Let’s go back to the cabin. I’m not exactly feeling up to the mark.”

Dean still looked frustrated over something he couldn’t pinpoint, but he relented, packing and then steering Sam out of town, away from yet another near-death experience.

 _One more memory of my life running out of me._ Flashbacks of the past and the realization that he would never see Dean again. Nothing could have motivated him more in his fight against that sadistic ghoul.

Sam leaned back in his seat. How could things change so drastically in one day?

He had wanted to take it slow, give Dean a bit of time to get used to whatever physical strangeness had transpired between them, and suddenly Dean hooks up with a girl and _wham! I’m seeing red._ Running amok and almost biting the dust in the process.

What a train wreck this whole story had become, Sam thought, and forced himself to close his eyes. Once his eyelids became heavy, sleep approached him rather quickly and he barely made it out of the car when Dean occasionally stopped to buy coffee.

The car’s soothing sound reliably lulled him back to sleep. And what the feeling of safety didn’t manage, the residual medication and the exhaustion of the day before accomplished. When someone punched his shoulder, Sam had a problem reaching complete wakefulness again, struggling to escape the depths of his sleep.

Where were they? Right, the supermarket a couple of miles away from the cabin.

Sam followed Dean inside and went through the aisles to gather the foodstuffs that balanced durability and health aspects. Tomato paste. Brown rice. Canned red peppers.

“Pie!”

Sam rolled his eyes although Dean’s voice had come from the checkout counter and the effect was lost. He found some more supplies and went to checkout as well.

“Dean, I…” he began, but Dean wasn’t looking at him. He stood in front of the counter and performed his little dance for the young woman behind it. Weight on the one leg, then on the other, head inclined, shoulders participating almost imperceptibly. Relaxed. Too relaxed!

 _He knows her!_ Sam felt his eyes narrowing. Oh, no, fuck fuck fuck!

Immediately, he was transported to the bar, the picture of Dean and _that girl_ so vividly displayed in his mind that he had to suppress the urge to snap at the poor cashier when she squeezed an avocado a bit too hard.

“That blueberry crumble you had last time was fantastic,” Dean said and smiled that dangerously winsome smile, making her blush.

Sam closed his eyes. This wasn’t happening. _This is insane!_

“Sam, you’re alright?”

 _No._ “Yes.”

The lie weighed even heavier on Sam’s conscience when Dean started fussing over him, asking him if he needed anything else, telling him to stretch his leg and change the dressing material as soon as possible.

“I’m fine, Dean,” Sam assured him, but he felt like shit. Exhausted despite the sleep and so tired out that falling unconscious and waking up a week later would be welcome.

In the cabin, he directly plunked down on the couch, leaving it to Dean to unpack the car. Stomp, stomp, rustle, clank, and Dean’s shadow unerringly finding its way in the dim room. Back and forth, and again, and then… nothing.

Sam reluctantly propped himself up on his elbows.

Dean was standing in the middle of the room, looking around. Then he suddenly stopped, his body freezing mid-movement after finding whatever had been the object of his search. Slowly, he turned to the counter and walked to it. The small light over the sink was switched on.

“It didn’t work,” Dean said quietly, but with such profound sadness that it whisked away Sam’s tiredness more effectively than a handful of uppers. He shot up from the couch.

“What?” he asked, but Dean shook his head. “Seriously, Dean, what’s going on?”

Dean started to turn before he hesitated and cast down his eyes. Blinking, he continued shaking his head as if he could dispel the thought that troubled him.

 _Oh my God, speak!_ Sam begged internally. He rushed forward and clutched Dean, holding on although Dean tried to face away again. “What? What happened?” he implored. “Dean, what are you talking about?”

“Not for one minute!” Dean blurted out, still facing the counter. “I tried, but … it just didn’t work!” He turned to Sam abruptly, eyes first inscrutable but then giving way to bitterness.

And why? What was he talking about?

“What the hell, Dean?” Sam asked, suppressing the urge to beat the truth out of him.

“That’s what you said, wasn’t it?” Dean retorted, the tone challenge and accusation at once. “When you came back!”

Sam’s fists clenched around the fabric of Dean’s jacket. Why did Dean have to remember? Why now?

_Did it work? Getting me out of your system?_

Sam gritted his teeth, the hatred he had felt at that moment coming back full force and anger eating its path through his mind like acid, unstoppable.

“That girl. You saw me with her,” Dean stated.

Sam breathed in. He would stay reasonable. He wouldn’t go off! “So what?” he snapped, the unfounded wrath he still couldn’t explain leaving a disgusting taste in his mouth. This wasn’t good, he needed to put a lid on it now!

_Did it work? Getting me out of your system?_

Mocking him. Tattooed in his mind.

Sam let go of Dean and stepped back. Maybe this would help. Calm him down. Make Dean a little less distressed.

“I couldn’t do it!” Dean pressed out. “I couldn’t … be with her! Something happened to me, Sam! And I’m not myself anymore!”

What? But before Sam could make sense of Dean’s words, he was pulled forward, Dean clutching his jacket and shaking him. “You ... What did you do to me?” Dean shouted. “Make it stop!”

Emotions were changing so quickly that Sam needed a moment to grasp the meaning. He caught Dean’s eye.

“I didn’t …” Sam started before he bit his tongue and one thought edged everything aside. _He didn’t get involved with that girl!_ “We’re confused. Living in each other’s pocket like that, it … it was just a matter of time that things … overlap. It’s my fault,” Sam stuttered to say at least _something_.

None of the apprehension on Dean’s face eased off.  “Overlap? What the fuck, Sam!”

 _Yeah, really, what the fuck?_ “I don’t know, Dean!” Sam exclaimed. “I have no idea why your goddamn libido gets so confused after one episode like that!”

Although it wasn’t so surprising after all, shot through Sam’s mind. Dean had lived with his arousal, had seen it as a part of their interaction, but couldn’t get any relief.

Sam fixed Dean with his gaze. Relief. Blowing off steam. Something along these lines was what Dean always did and it worked, didn’t it? And hadn’t he said it himself? That it would’ve been okay to ease the tension in a physical way?

His throat constricted and his whole body screamed at him to run! He wasn’t actually considering this, was he? This wouldn’t be a lapse. It would be the Fall!

 _But he said we could explain it away_ , Sam thought, and automatically, his hand reached for the top button of his shirt to open it.

“Whadda you…?”

“Relief, okay? This is all this is about,” Sam interjected. And it would just be a one-time thing, he decided. “Like the booze.”

Dean’s face changed from distress to complete bewilderment and Sam could barely keep himself from touching it. Instead he finished his buttons with increasingly unsteady fingers and before he could have second thoughts, he stepped forward to press Dean into the counter.

“What the…?” Dean gasped, but didn’t escape to the side.

Sam shut out the world, shut down his brain. He didn’t need it now. He needed to act.

“I’m gonna fix this,” he said and shed his jacket and his shirt at once. He knew Dean was staring at him, but he only noticed it peripherally. “This will stop bothering us and we’ll deal with the effects like a hangover,” he continued and pulled his T-shirt over his head. “No frills.”

The chilly air of the unheated room on his upper body cooled off the initial heat. When Sam leaned back so he could look at Dean, he felt exposed and so fucking vulnerable that his calm façade was crumbling.

 _I’ll fix this,_ he repeated inwardly and took Dean’s hand to press it on his bare chest. “Are you in?”

Dean didn’t even blink. He seemed petrified, but his hand was still there, leaving its warm imprint. Sam narrowed his sensation down to that small patch of skin. It felt so good. It shouldn’t, but hell it did.

“Are you crazy?” Dean rasped.

 _Yes. No!_ “That’s not the question.”

The small area of skin was already radiating so much warmth … more of that would be too much, or would it? Sam moved his pelvis a little, a trial balloon of sorts, and his own arousal met Dean’s hardening dick. Oh yeah, that was it!

Dean took some gulps of air.

“Are you in?” Sam repeated with a shaky voice, and the question produced even more terribly silent seconds. Dread clawed at his resolve, his heartbeat’s drumming reaching his throat.

Directing his eyes to his hand as if he couldn’t believe what he was doing, Dean frowned and Sam’s courage vanished. He let go of Dean, preparing to step away, but was immediately pulled back by his belt.

“Damn it,” Dean ground out. And if the hand on his belt hadn’t been enough, the one on his chest now wandered around his upper body to lend weight to the matter.

It was all the confirmation he would get, Sam decided when his own hands had acted on their own will already, fiddling with the buttons of Dean’s shirt. It would be advisable to hold back, take things slow, yeah, sure, but Dean acquiesced so willingly, let his shirt and jacket be pushed off without so much as a curse, and it felt like in the motel, when each item of clothing was simply in the way.

 _Off!_ The T-shirt almost tore in the process, but then he had a whole landscape of Dean’s naked skin to explore, and wow, it was new and good, even his own skin felt different. Too sensitive but, at the same time, not relaying enough information.

Sam bent his head and swerved to the side at the last moment, and a brief shock over the fact that he had almost made the same mistake _again_ was followed by the foreign and glorious feeling of Dean’s upper body pressed against his.

Dean strained against him, and of course he wouldn’t let himself be pushed into the counter like that, Sam realized when he was being marched backward through the room. He put up a fight of sorts, pulling Dean with him when he was jostled onto the couch, but every grip was anticipated, they knew each other too well and the struggle was over when Dean knelt astride him to grind his crotch into Sam’s.

Forcing air into his lungs, Sam gasped. “Fuck yes!”

This was better. Just that. Better … than _anything_. But this wasn’t the _point_!

 _Fix … this,_ Sam’s mind propelled him on. With his entire strength, he rolled Dean over to straddle him, but then his hands didn’t want to obey him anymore.

This was his mission, though. His duty to take action. And by God, Dean wanted it, that much was clear, because he wouldn’t have surrendered so readily to someone assuming the lead, wouldn’t look so debauched already despite the restricted friction of a bit of frotting!

Too little! Hell, that’s just not enough!

Sam purposefully opened Dean’s trousers, and didn’t it come in handy that everything was just the same as he knew it, only mirrored? And as Dean gave that suppressed groan when Sam encircled his dick, it wasn’t so strange anymore, touching what he had seen hundreds of times before.

He could leave it at that. Finish Dean off and stop.

 _Stop,_ he repeated when he hurriedly undid his own fly. More hot flesh aligning meant so much more unbridled want, though, but _stop!_ there was still the chance to retreat, let go, let…

“Sam … please!”

No time, then. Just his hand that was too small for both of their dicks, but he needed the other one to support himself on the backrest of the couch because otherwise he wouldn’t have the chance to see Dean. He just _had_ to look at him like that, eyes squeezed shut and mouth drawing in stuttering breaths. At a certain pressure of Sam’s hand, his shoulders twitched and he searched for even more contact, and he was so very ready to let go.

 _So ready, yeah,_ Sam thought, staggering. God, no, this wouldn’t, not now… _No!_  “Hell…” he swore, but the almost blinding force of his impending orgasm snatched away his voice. Thunderstruck by the urgent pull in his balls, he tried to stave off his release although it was too late, and Dean wouldn’t allow any slackening anyway, so why not ride it out?

Sam allowed himself a few desperate shoves to continue the hot thrill that ended much too soon regardless, his softening dick slipping out of his hand. Speeding up his movements in the slick mess, Sam studied Dean’s face, saw him bite down and his expression becoming almost pained until suddenly, his whole body tensed when he finally came.

 _He’s beautiful,_ flashed through Sam’s mind. Eyes fluttering open, chest heaving. Body of soft and hard angles.

“Damn …” Dean puffed, rousing Sam. Before things could become awkward, Sam quickly buttoned up his trousers. He pushed himself off and went to the kitchen to wash his hands and then throw Dean the paper towels.

To wipe off our semen! Fuck, who was he fooling? Things were awkward already.

“Dinner? I could make stir-fry,” he suggested, addressing the stove most of all.

“Sounds good. But don’t forget to put some meat in it.”

Dean remained on the couch for the preparation of the meal, watching TV, and he let the background noise continue when they sat down at the table to eat. A good decision, really, because Sam wouldn’t have known what to say, not even if someone had put a gun to his head.

Thankfully, Dean offered to do the dishes afterward while Sam occupied himself with research, but the friendly silence accompanied by some pop music program slowly generated tension in the air that one could cut.

“This is crazy,” Sam heard and looked up. Dean leaned against the counter, drying his hands with a kitchen towel.

 _It was just this once,_ Sam thought, but couldn’t bring himself to say it. Instead he shrugged. “Doing a friend a favor. That’s what you said, right?” He raised an eyebrow, wishing he felt half as confident as he wanted to appear.

Dean shook his head and huffed out a laugh. “What do you expect? Thanks?”

Sam closed his laptop, got up and pulled the mattress off the bunk bed. He was so fed up with entangling his legs in the metal bars at the foot.

 _What did I expect?_ A major backlash, hysterics, something like that. But this? What was this anyway? Wondrous acceptance? Well, he could work with that.

“Sure, why not? Glad I could help out,” Sam remarked as casually as he could.

Dean was getting comfortable on the couch again and Sam watched him a little more from his mattress on the floor.

What was most important was that he had averted another crisis, right? Dean had stepped away from the abyss and that’s what this had been about.

 _It’s a one-time thing,_ Sam repeated and his fists clenched involuntarily. _I’ll find a different way from now on._

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Much beta-goodness from daydreamernv, as always :D


	14. Chapter 14

From far away, he looked so small. But maybe it was just the mattress and the way those overlong legs reached over it, his feet touching the floor.

Dean looked away and shoveled another spoonful of instant coffee into his cup. Better make it strong – although, generally, caffeine wasn’t such a good idea, as much as he already felt like smashing something.

Wreck the place, leave scorched earth and never return. And the cabin would burn down along with the images that his brain was finally doing its best to file away, but failing.

Sam had been calm about it, determined. Slept like a baby now. But hell, it was no surprise, was it? Sam did the logical thing. All you have to do is accuse him of ruining you for anyone else and he comes to the rescue!

Dean winced in embarrassment. Sam helped out in times of need, even if that meant getting half naked and jerking each other off.

 _God, I’m such a sorry loser._ Dean poured boiling water into the mug and the dark solution produced an acrid smell. It fit, though. He had to deal with the aftereffects like a hangover, right? That’s what Sam had said. And almost undrinkable coffee was part of the ritual.

And then?

The idea that _Sam would know_ was stomped down immediately. Sam’s recent answers to a problem rather opened up Pandora’s Box. Or a whole shelf of them.

“You lit a fire,” Dean heard and raised his head. Sam had propped himself up on his elbow and was examining him, no other word adequately described that look, and Dean’s simmering self-consciousness skyrocketed.

“Coffee?” Dean asked and inhaled, slightly relieved by the fact that Sam didn’t seem to be completely at ease either, as reluctantly as he emerged from his blanket.

“That would be great, thanks,” Sam said, stepping into his trousers in a hurry.

Wow, great. The serious slip of the day before would be crowned by carefully dancing around the issue, a backlash that meant distance and evasion and all those other things he didn’t miss.

“How about we repair the hardwood floor this morning?”

Dean blinked. That was unexpected. “Sure,” he answered. So they were back to home improvement, live this time. Could be worse, he thought, and still maintained that frame of mind when they continued by cleaning each and every weapon in the car trunk and in the house. When the next day arrived, Sam was already on the roof, repairing tar paper. Would he join in?

 _I can’t sit on the porch in the meanwhile, can I?_ Dean grumbled inwardly.

The porch served as the next target anyway, he found out, and there was such a fucking lot to fix that Dean actually wished for a little less evading and more talking. But Sam acted like nothing had happened and proceeded like a holiday rep of the least entertaining kind.

On the fourth day, not that Dean was counting, Sam removed the stitches and he wouldn’t stop nagging until Dean went for a run with him, two hours cross-country as it turned out. The sun was already starting to set when they returned and gratefully, Dean revitalized himself under the cold shower – or rather resuscitated himself because he felt clinically dead at the end of that open-air torture.

He should have been tired. Hell, he really should, with Sam wearing him out like that.

Dean retreated to the couch and switched on the TV, just like he had done in the past days. Sleep would be great now. A release.

Trying to process the plot of the third-class action movie he was watching, Dean waited, his body so weary that he could barely lift the remote anymore. Sleep would come. Today it would just overwhelm him, clear out his mind that rejected violent movie shootouts and even refused to dig up a bit of hellish entertainment.

It had just one program: The incident on the couch in technicolor. Every damn night.

And with it came the urge to flee because all that staring at Sam on that too small mattress was repulsive, just like the necessity to be near Sam. A yearning so strong that it triggered the panic again, yup, great, the nausea and the racing heart already presented arms.

With trembling hands, Dean switched off the TV. What Sam had done hadn’t helped in the least, in fact, it had made things worse, causing a constant hangover without the buzz.

 _At least that can be remedied,_ Dean thought to himself and got up. Somehow, the whiskey had disappeared during Sam’s cleaning spell in the kitchen, but there was that unlabeled bottle under the sink that contained vodka, if Dean remembered correctly. The only other thing it could be was methylated spirits, and distinguishing between the two was easy, right?

He carefully felt for the bottle and pulled it out. In the weak moonlight it looked okay, and opening it proved that it also smelled like vodka. Convinced that he wouldn’t go blind, he poured himself a glass and then knocked it back.

“Still up?”

Dean froze. But why? Fucking hell, who was he, hiding the fact that he needed a drink? “Just a nightcap,” he said without turning around. He filled the glass again and drank half of it.

“Your second.”

 _Damn._ “What do you care?”

Rustling, then steps were approaching. Dean turned around and Sam was already sitting on the edge of the table. Boxers, T-shirt, that was it, although his half-dressed state didn’t seem to bother him as much as something else, something that knit his eyebrows and made him rub his chin.

Dean finished the glass and Sam now really focused on him, having come to an end of whatever he had been deliberating.

“I just thought that alcohol might be detrimental,” Sam said and inclined his head.

That look! Dean knew it, but couldn’t recall a situation when it had been directed at him. “So the science guys say,” he remarked, but then his mouth snapped shut. Of course he had never seen it directed at him. It was a leer, for God’s sake! It spoke of sex, or rather screamed of it!

And then Sam suited the action to the look, taking the final two steps to bridge the remaining gap between them. Dean had almost started when, without fanfare, a hand glided down his crotch and up again, pulled at the belt that fell apart like nothing and flicked open the buttons.

“You know what I mean?” Sam whispered and Dean just nodded before he was pressed into the counter. Sam’s hand between them, but that didn’t matter, Dean knew that reaching full hardness wasn’t going to take long, not like that, not when Sam’s movements were so urgent, his grip so sure.

Dean clawed the counter to hold on to it because, oh yeah, what Sam did felt good, and now, _that_ felt even better! Sam’s dick was this incredible source of heat and it fit right next to his own, like they were made for each other, sensitive areas complementing just right, so…

Dean sucked in air between his teeth and exhaled shaky breaths, but it was nothing to Sam panting in his ear, moaning, adjusting the pressure on their dicks in the best of ways and hey, whoa, why had that bastard come already again!

Too hot and too slippery! Dean desperately tried to hold back, but his balls were tightening so delightfully, it was unbearable. Barreling along, his orgasm whipped away his control in no time, and the tip of his dick became the white-hot center of lust.

“Holy…!” Dean shouted when his body painstakingly ejected all the pent-up tension from the previous days. Dazzled, he clung to the board to avoid slumping to the floor.

“You should get some rest,” Sam said and Dean’s head was spinning too much to care for what was happening. The coarse linen of the kitchen towel wiping off fluids? Yeah, thanks.

Trousers were buttoned up and he was steered backward to the couch and onto it.

“Sleep,” Sam’s voice commanded gently, and Dean’s eyes obeyed as if they had never done anything else.

 

*********

 

_Fuck!_

The thought preceded his awakening, or it roused him, or it popped up the moment he all but jumped up from the couch, whatever, Dean gasped for air, stringing his lungs and heart into working overtime at such an early hour.

_That son of a bitch!_

His eyes automatically searched for and found Sam on the mattress, oh so helpful Sam who wasn’t keen on keeping some dude from a serious case of blue balls, oh no, do-gooder Sam had devised his own special detox regimen above all!

 _Keep me away from the booze or anything that he deems risky self-destructive behavior._ He had said that.

Dean slapped his forehead. God, I’m so stupid! I should listen carefully for a change! _Like the booze my ass!_ Just another problematic habit for sure!

Stupefied, Dean sat on the couch, focusing on the ceiling and waiting for the sun to rise. What in the name of everything that was normal and boring was going on? How could Sam be so fucking clinical?

“I found us a case last night,” he heard. Damn it, Sam was up. But of course he was. He had more duties to fulfill, the busy bee, Dean thought to himself and just about stopped himself from huffing out loud.

And so instead he drove the car. Listened to details about the incidents marking the case, the body of a town clerk washed up on a riverbank, sightings along the river, general unrest among the anglers enjoying their well-earned holidays.

Dean first suppressed his yawning, but then gave in. He was tired and bored and utterly, even dangerously, bugged! Slipping in a cassette made it marginally better, improving his mood to a level where he could respond to Sam’s theories in at least one-word answers.

“Seriously?” Dean asked for what was certainly the tenth time. Water spirit sounded just as preposterous as the string of demons, ghouls and half-gods Sam had listed before.

“The river seems to play a role.”

“Or is a convenient way to dispose of a body,” Dean retorted.

“Or that.”

Finally the haphazard theorizing was over. If it hadn’t stopped now, they might have ended up with conflux demons making fucking deals on fucking boats!

At least the town might point them toward something meaningful. But Dean’s hopes were crushed as the local sheriff had classified the death as due to natural causes and the family had swiftly gotten back to business as usual and cremated their drowned relative.

So that was that. They had exhausted all the traces. Now there was nothing left but speculation.

Outside the sheriff’s office, even Sam couldn’t manage to end the uncomfortably long moment of indecision. He likewise seemed to lack ideas and energy to pursue the case.

“Food?” Dean suggested and Sam nodded. Ten minutes later, they stood in front of the town’s only diner which was closed for remodeling, or for good – the signs weren’t entirely clear.

“We could drive back to the gas station we saw a couple of miles out of town,” Sam said.

Dean shook his head. “You’re joking, right? There’s a bar down the road and I remember the sign announcing that they serve food.”

A raised eyebrow and a noncommittal wave with his hand concealed the fact that Dean actually waited for some dubious explanation why they shouldn’t go to the bar. No doubt Sam wouldn’t want to see him near the alcohol. That would violate his program, wouldn’t it?

But that godforsaken town simply didn’t offer any alternatives and forced Sam to relent. It irked him, though, so much became abundantly clear on his face. Dean’s joy about winning the upper hand lasted until they entered the relatively decent place, yet it ended the second they were served food that could only be described as complete garbage. Dean sneaked a peek at Sam before he began to poke at the rest of his dry French fries. Time to test his theory then.

“That’ll only go down with a beer,” he said, but the moment he had placed the order with the stressed out waitress, he knew it had been a mistake.

 _I’m nuts. Sam would never do something like that,_ he decided and downed half of the beer when it arrived. At least the liquid sustenance in this place was acceptable and with yet another glass, the rest of the food also found its way down his throat. Maybe it was the bar’s strategy in the first place.

“We need to do a bit of research,” Sam said all of a sudden and got up before Dean could respond.

This was a coincidence, wasn’t it? Dean wondered, but followed Sam back to the motel where Sam actually booted the laptop and started to type.

Dean sat down at the table and copied the action, glad that he had been wrong. It was all a product of his imagination. Sam hadn’t become a teetotaler all of a sudden, combining it with a weird sex mission.

 _I’m crazy,_ Dean thought, and allowed himself to get lost in the outrageous theories that Sam had postulated on their drive. Unfortunately they didn’t lead to anything, so his mind returned to the first unanswered question of the day.

Dean leaned back in his chair, trying to get rid of his perhaps gratuitous suspicions. But they simply wouldn’t budge and the internal nagging persisted so annoyingly that he finally gave in. Just to prove himself wrong. That was the only idea behind it, right?

“That’s it,” he declared without looking at Sam. “I’m gonna shower and then head back to that bar. All work and no play, well, you know the rest.”

Yuck, there it was again, the feeling from the bar. Self-loathing and indigestible food made a terrible combination. Laying out bait for Sam like that!

But while he was stomping on his morals, he should better do it right, so he took off his flannel and shirt in a deliberately casual way to drop both on the bed. He was feeling Sam’s eyes on him and the remaining steps to the bathroom took entirely too long. Only in the shower did he feel safe again, although going by the filth his conscience was covered with, he’d need to scrub himself with a wire brush to ever get clean again.

 _I’m alone, that’s all that counts,_ he thought to himself and begged Sam to stay away. _Please, don’t fall for it, don’t…_

The door opened and Dean’s breath caught. He turned to the wall, closing his eyes when the shower curtain got pulled to the side.

_This isn’t happening. This isn’t Sam’s dick in my lower back. And Sam’s not completely naked!_

“Want company?” Sam whispered in his ear.

 _No … Yes!_ Dean pushed away the sickening feeling of his soul bleeding into a puddle of mud. Warm, wet Sam was suddenly so much more important.

He grabbed Sam’s hand and put it on his stomach, a go-ahead between them already, it seemed, because Sam immediately became that giant, greedy octopus. One hand directly aiming for the prize, the other seemingly everywhere else, wow, ticklish, but who would have thought that above his pelvic bone sat an erogenous zone?

The heat, the steam, everything was making him dizzy and he needed to lean against the wall with his forehead and shoulder and let himself be transported to that place where every last nerve ending was stimulated by those strong, sensitive fingers.

Steam clogged his breathing, and thankfully, Sam made the jet face a different direction. Dean inhaled and then gasped in surprise when he was spun around and his back pressed against the tiles.

“What…?” he began before his voice trailed off. The hand was still there, but Sam was about to kneel and, oh no, he wouldn’t!

Dean’s hand shot out and clutched Sam’s damp hair, but the information his brain was supplying simply didn’t want to reach his fingers. Seriously, stop! Dean screamed inside when Sam swallowed the tip of his dick without missing a beat. But don’t stop!

_Oh hell, don’t! Go on, deeper, the tongue just like that and a bit more suction, God, yes, like that!_

With a Herculean effort, Dean snatched his hand away from Sam’s hair because all he wanted to do was hold on and push in some more. Instead he leaned back, the joints crisscrossing his shoulders, but that feeling was just as fleeting as everything else. What remained of his senses concentrated on his groin, on that soft mouth that knew so much better what it was doing than it should … It knew so fucking well, so …

“Son of a bitch!” Dean swore and somewhere at the back of his mind, he registered that Sam took the hint and replaced his mouth with his other hand, but that didn’t make a difference, not really, one stroke and Dean exploded, a flare of pleasure so fierce that he couldn’t reconnect to reality for a while.

When he finally blinked back his mental faculties, Sam was already standing upright again under the shower, hair plastered to his head like a wet dog. Erection still prominent, but neglected, he was washing his face.

“I’m shriveling up,” Dean stated. Ignoring everything else, he gripped Sam’s wrist and pulled him with him, dripping. Resistance? A definite no, even when Sam was pushed on the bed. Dean allowed himself a brief glimpse, but became instantly transfixed by what he saw – Oh God! So wrong!

He tore his eyes away. Uncertainty be damned! He wouldn’t leave Sam high and dry!

Determined, he knelt on the bed and then lay on the side next to Sam. He ran his hand down Sam’s stomach only to contrast tenderness with an iron grip around his dick afterward. Sam inhaled shakily.

 _Yeah, almost done for._ Dean smiled. _No stamina_.

Sam pushed into his hand, two, three, a dozen times and was waylaid by his climax once more. The stupid look of bliss took over, magnetic, really, when he gave up control like that. Stupid, stupid deep groan, and that tremor of his lips … God, what a stunning picture…

Dean exhaled and let his head plunk on the mattress, a bout of much appreciated relaxation crawling into every bone. Wiping his hand on the scratchy blankets, he inhaled the smell of bleach that was superseded by a heady cloud of water and sweat, vaporized by body heat.

Sam turned toward Dean, just like he had done a million times, in the car, on the couch and on the bed, and Dean reached out for him, like he had so often, his hand on the back of Sam’s head.

The smile formed on its own behalf, it was just natural and it also felt natural to lean in to _… what? Fuck! To what?_

As quickly as Dean had gotten lost in the moment, he came to his senses again. He cleared his throat. “You know what? We should check out the old mill down the river. The sightings might be connected to the building and not to the river itself. So let’s get into something a little bit less comfortable.”

Without waiting for an answer, he got up, shame burning a hole into his chest. What had he done? And Sam! What the hell …?

Quelling the thoughts that showed him exactly what kind of shit Sam had pulled, Dean assembled something to wear. Yeah, he had proven his theory. But at what cost?

A peek at Sam showed that he was unfazed and composed. Of course, what else could he be after such a successful treatment!

“Sure,” Sam said. “It’s just half a mile through the fields from here.”

A walk didn’t sound very promising, but being stuck in a car didn’t either. And perhaps there would be an opportunity to talk, Dean thought and put on his jacket.

This would end. Now. And he would be able to look Sam in the eye again. Not immediately, but later, when his guilt had lessened and Sam had forgiven him for the fact that to stop this, there had been no other chance but to make it hurt worse than anything ever before.

 _He’s gonna kill me._ Dean sighed and felt for his knife. Hopefully he would only need it for a demon.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much, daydreamernv, for not losing faith in me!


	15. Chapter 15

_Focus!_

Sam carefully stepped past a giant hole in the floor and immediately had to duck his head to avoid a ceiling beam that was close to cracking.

 _We really should have stayed downstairs,_ he thought to himself, and then his concentration was completely gone again. With a hiss, he breathed in and tried to quell the major freakout that was lurking. Fuck fuck fuck!

_Concentrate! Don’t fall to your death. Do your job!_

Dean let him go first down the stairs back to the first floor and Sam tried to function, tried to give the impression that he was on task, but how the fuck was that supposed to work?

Sam knew that Dean had been watching him. Was _still_ watching him, scrutinizing every pore. And he had every right to.

Neck muscles so tense that he could barely move his head, Sam aimed for the exit. He had to leave, to return to the motel …

And then? Spend the rest of the night penned up in one room? The mere idea made Sam’s hair stand on end. No, he had to get his own room because he couldn’t be trusted anymore. He couldn’t trust himself.

Dean coughed, ripping Sam from his scattered thoughts. “I know where this is going,” he said, his voice even.

Confused, Sam directed his flashlight at the door. “Yeah?”

Dean frowned. “Not that, Einstein,” he retorted with an air of complete annoyance. It was almost comically exaggerated until the features became blank again. “But it’s time I stop playing along,” Dean continued. “Especially after you’ve had my goddamn dick in your mouth.”

The words carried no emotion, but they shattered Sam’s thin layer of normalcy more effectively than a direct blow to the head. “What?” Sam asked, his hand cramping around the flashlight.

“You heard me.”

Loud and clear. Too clear. The visuals that automatically followed in Sam’s head were stunning. Hard to miss, all of it, right? And so out of control that Sam felt like he had been drugged.

Like his soul had been stolen again without him realizing it.

“You think I didn’t figure it out the moment you started that little charade?” Dean said and laughed the ugliest laugh Sam had ever heard from him.

“Charade?” Sam asked, but his mind repeated Dean’s earlier words over and over again, a perverted mantra to drive him to distraction. _Especially after you’ve had my goddamn dick in your mouth._ Like a one-night stand. Like a soulless beast who’d jump at each and every opportunity to get sex, no matter how vague the offer was.

The images of the past night mixed with flashes from two years ago, an amalgamation of bodies without faces, dirty back alleys, cars, and no-tell motels.

“What else would you call it?” Dean asked and snorted derisively. Sam tried to follow the words although his brain was wading through molasses. “Sure, the means were different, but it wasn’t the first time you pulled a stunt like that. All that hugging bullshit? Same thing, different game plan. For the greater good of keeping me on the righteous path, or whatever. But believe me, I don’t need that.”

Dean inclined his head, studying Sam as if he could see the repulsive display in his head. “Should have stopped you when you completely embarrassed yourself,” Dean said and shrugged. “But I had a good laugh and a bit of extra fun because why not?”

That cold voice again. It tore through Sam until only raw emotion was left. He couldn’t remember ever feeling so exposed.

“You son of a bitch,” Sam whispered, more to himself. It didn’t matter what Dean flung at him, he deserved it.

“Last time I looked, you were the one who thought it was a good idea to whore yourself out for some of peace of mind,” Dean retorted, and Sam switched off his flashlight. The light was too harsh, but perhaps it was the truth that made his eyes burn.

 _If only Dean was right,_ he thought and compressed his lips. Things would be so much better.

Yet the fact that Dean had announced he would be leaving for the bar hadn’t played a role in his actions. As an excuse, a pretense, yes, because Sam’s mind needed some anchor to tie his moral principles to when, with each layer of clothing Dean shed on his way to the bathroom, the thin veneer of civilization was pried open some more and pure disgusting want burst forth.

A minute or two, not more. Then his defenses had struck their colors. That’s what set him apart from his soulless self: Two minutes of hesitation.

“Hey, you’re still in there?” Sam winced when Dean’s knuckles knocked on the back of his head.

Was he still in there? He blinked and gave himself a moment to really look at Dean. All those crude words, they had hit home. They were supposed to because Dean needed to create a distance between them as the last transgression could never be rectified. It had been out of bounds, although for completely different reasons.

_I wasn’t drunk. Or bewitched. Or possessed._

Pulling himself together, Sam tried to form some coherent thoughts. If Dean really believed it was all a part of some scheme to keep him from drinking, he’d better endorse that illusion. It was partially correct, wasn’t it? And nothing could explain the truth.

_I wanted it._

Sam breathed in. “Yeah, sorry,” he said and shook his head. “I’m … you know, just that. I’m sorry.”

“Well, great! That’s gonna erase my memories for sure.” Without waiting for an answer, Dean simply walked away, out the door, down the old driveway until the residual glow of his flashlight was gone.

Sitting down on the stairs to the entrance, Sam listened to the gurgling of the nearby river. Dean had crushed all kinds of memories. More terrible ones than that. He would manage.

_And what about me?_

“Fuck,” Sam sighed without emphasis. The shower incident would never blend into the array and women and men who had crossed his soulless path. Nothing could wipe out such a moment, which meant that he had to live with it, just like he had to live with Dean’s wrath that would descend on him like his own personal judgment day.

Sam sighed again and got up. _Great. What a prospect._

 

****

 

“I see you got your own room?” Sam opened his eyes to Dean studying the wall décor. “Fancy,” he continued. “If you like pansies.”

Trying to ignore the slightly cutting undertone, Sam rubbed his face and got out of bed.

“Anything else?”

“Work, of course. I thought we could swing by the farm a bit downstream from the mill.”

“I’ll be ready in a sec,” Sam said and Dean took the hint and left the room. Not without slamming the door, though. “Good morning to you too,” Sam sent after him, sure he wouldn’t hear.

Dressing in the same clothes as the day before, Sam looked around for the coke he had bought from the vending machine. It had to be enough, he decided, and it would wake him up for good – which was more than necessary as a step outside the door nearly blinded him. Brilliant and unrelenting, the sun burned down on the sweltering parking lot.

“Ugh, shit,” he muttered and caught up with Dean who was headed down the old road that meandered through the fields.

The same trail again, but now everything was glaringly clear in the light of day. Tarmac riddled with cracks and made impassable by weeds and poppies alongside the trees he had heard rustling in the wind in the night and which now formed a green and yellow canopy full of birds.

Sam frowned at the incredible beauty of the scenery. Nature was fucking kidding him, right?

Around them, in untilled fields dotted with shrubs, waist-high grass was waving gently, almost accompanying the rhythm of their walk. The air was positively glowing, just like Dean, the sun highlighting his hair that was not completely gummed up in gel for a change. Freckles standing out. Eyes the clearest green.

Sam couldn’t recall when he had turned his head, but he gradually became aware of the fact that he was staring. It was too good to be true, to be honest. Like the day before, after they had… Dean was just too –

“Cut that out!” Dean commanded. Sam woke from his daydream and examined the path again. “You’re giving me the creeps.” Dean sped up, but before he was out of earshot, he muttered something that Sam was sure he had misunderstood.

_Freak._

Warmth became uncomfortable heat. The birds faded away. Movement and colors were merely a blur.

Sam gasped for air. He definitely hadn’t heard it wrong although he wished he had. Somehow, he had almost forgotten to associate that word with himself, and it dug up so much crap that he just wanted to scream.

Anything Dean would dish out, he’d take because he deserved it, but this was just …

“You goddamn jerk!” he shouted and ran after Dean to grab him by the shoulder, but Dean shrugged him off. “I get it, okay? You want to push me away and you have every right to ...”

“Wow, thanks.” Matter of fact. They passed the mill and the farm came into sight, situated between green and yellow trees, a picturesque postcard image. Goddamn fucking lushness of the landscape! As if it wanted to mock him!

“But not like that, you hear me?” Sam demanded and a cloud conveniently emphasized the darkening of Dean’s features. “I won’t let you tear down every bridge because you think that’s the safest track!”

“This isn’t …” Dean opened the little gate to the farm’s front yard. “Dammit!” he whispered urgently. “Can’t you see that everything has gotten out of hand?”

 _Definitely._ “We’ll deal with it!’” Uncertainty crippling him, Sam kept his voice steady regardless.

“Why are you such a stubborn ass?” Dean growled. “We can’t d–”

The sentence broke off and Dean slumped to the ground. Sam had barely time to realize where the attack had come from before the back of his head lit up with pain and he toppled down too. Gravel chafing his cheek, Sam was barely conscious enough to understand that he was being pulled along the pathway and around the house. With great force, his feet were bound together, fuck, he had to move, he had to get away … Dean?

With all his might, he worked against the numbing concussion and turned his head. There was Dean, completely out of it as they were being pulled along the path, the grass and the reeds … the reed! They were being moved toward the river!

“Dean, wake up!” Sam croaked, but there was no reaction.

“You’ll make good food for my brethren.”

Okay, whatever was dragging them could speak. Sam lifted his head as much as he could. A large black lump was all he saw, something that resembled rotting seaweed.

 _Doesn’t look as if it’s ready to be reasoned with_ , Sam thought and directed his attention to Dean again. He clutched his jacket to pull him nearer, but when he reached the knife in Dean’s pocket, their legs were already drawn under water. Frantically, Sam began to cut the thick rope while holding on to Dean at all cost. If he lost him, he would probably not find him again as whatever had caught them just submerged and kept on walking!

“Dean, wake the fuck up!” Nothing. Sam breathed in and dove to reach for his feet. He just hoped that Dean would survive long enough without extra air. Goddamn fucking rope!

Finally, he managed to cut it, but his exertions cost him most of his oxygen and he began swallowing muddy river water. While focusing his strength on the one remaining task, he ignored the panic and the pressure on his lungs and cut Dean loose too. Kicking and thrashing, he steered them toward the light and with a gasp, he reached the surface. Frantically, he made sure that Dean’s face was out of the water, but there was no sound.

“Dean!” Sam cried. In the weak current, he swam to the river bank and hoisting Dean onto the ground had the effect that he had prayed for. Dean sputtered, coughed and rolled himself to the side, spitting out water.

“What the fuck …?” he wheezed.

Sam first checked to make sure that whatever had surprised them wasn’t around anymore, but it had obviously decided to stay in the river permanently. Relieved, he sank to his knees and breathed, but real relaxation was impossible when the wet clothes sticking to his body slowly drained away his warmth.

Dean was also shivering, a pitiful picture of wet lashes and bluish lips, and Sam reached out to cradle his face with one hand, testing if there was a danger of hypothermia. But Dean seemed to be sufficiently warm and he was even able to smile, albeit briefly, before the corners of his mouth were drawn down again.

“We have to get back to the motel,” Dean announced, his voice still scratchy.

Sam nodded and helped him up although standing meant saying hello to yet another headache. And despite the sun, they dried off only marginally, the light breeze cooling them down at the same time.

“Did you get a look at it?” Dean asked, his teeth chattering.

“From behind, yeah,” Sam answered. He put his arm around Dean’s shoulder and pulled him near so they could share some warmth. “A bit like the thing from the swamp.”

Was Dean tensing? Perhaps he was just contracting his muscles to warm himself, Sam thought, although when they reached Dean’s door and Sam let him go, he clearly relaxed and exhaled. With a mixture of something Sam couldn’t decipher – was it desperation or resignation, or both? – he looked at Sam before casting down his eyes.

“What are we doing now?” Sam asked when the silence became uncomfortable because Dean was obviously engaged in an internal debate. “Research?”

“No.”

“Food?” Sam tried.

“I’m going to show you something,” Dean said with a deep frown.

“Show me what?” Sam asked

“Give me half an hour.”

“Alright, but I need my stuff.”

Without further ado, Dean turned around and opened his door, went inside only to return with the duffel. He chucked it at Sam, almost simultaneously shutting the door in his face.

At least there hadn’t been a final insult or something. That should count as a plus, Sam thought, and went to his room. Gratefully, he stepped out of his soggy clothes and put them on hangers to dry. Showering until his skin was flushed, Sam carefully washed off the traces of the river until there was just a faint smell of algae left. It had to be stuck somewhere deep in his skin, he decided, and stopped the shower to hunt for food in his bag.

Some power bars had to do, together with an excessive number of painkillers. They had a slimy water dweller to take off the streets, or rather out of the river, after all, so he should be prepared for whatever next step Dean was planning.

But real food would be nice regardless. And Dean would surely want to eat a proper meal now.

Before doubt could overwhelm him, Sam went to Dean’s door and knocked. From inside, he heard a voice so he pressed the handle and entered. Dean was just leaving the bathroom in his boxers, but he didn’t go to his bag to find clothes. Instead, he leaned against the wall some steps away from Sam.

Sam tore his eyes away and hoped that Dean hadn’t seen him looking. Holy shit, this wasn’t heading in the right direction.

“Should I come back later?” Sam asked. “So you can dress?”

“Nope, no need for that.”

“We do research then?”

Dean snorted. “Not exactly. This is show and tell.”

Confused, Sam fell silent.

“Get that jacket off,” Dean ordered. “And the shirt.”

The voice was gruff. Reluctantly, Sam obeyed and took off the clothes that he had put on a couple of minutes ago.

“Now the T-shirt.”

 _The T-shirt?_ “What are we doing? A spell?” Sam asked, overcame his hesitation and followed the instructions. Looking around for paint, he didn’t find any. No, there was no equipment to draw runes or ingredients to perform magic.

“Rather the opposite.”

Sam dared to face Dean and tried to find something in that carefully neutral expression he was confronted with. Nothing, really, although he thought he saw a hint of tentativeness that vanished when Dean stepped nearer. Thinking he was standing in the way, Sam retreated until there was nowhere left to go. He wasn’t getting out of the way, rather it appeared that he was being cornered.

“Dean …?” he began, but was pushed onto the mattress before he had assembled the words for a question, and a moment of uncertainty about what it all meant was replaced by incredulous anticipation when Dean pressed him down further on the bed while sitting astride him.

 _What_ … the word was there and just about to be uttered before it was swallowed up by Dean’s lips that were not merely a static touch but earnest pressure and movement and, holy shit, tongue!

The shock took Sam’s breath away and he closed his eyes to somehow filter the impressions he was drowning in. Dean’s tongue requested entry and his body searched for contact wherever it could and Sam just let it happen, no idea how to react.

It was too much not to be aroused. Too wrong not to be repulsed. Both notions canceled each other out, leaving him motionless, trapped.

“Come on, Sammy.”

That nickname, coaxing him, caressing, a puff of breath on his lips demanding an answer and he wanted to say Dean’s name, he did, but opening his mouth also meant inviting Dean, he realized too late when a kiss was already biting, sucking and licking Sam’s reservations away.

He felt it taking over, like the day before, that pure want.

 _Less than a minute,_ he thought and suddenly, there was a hand on his fly and he didn’t mind, opening it, making short work of the waistband of the boxers. How had Dean managed to get out of his? Only Dean knew, and Sam didn’t care because it was all perfect, the well-known strokes of both of their dicks, slicker this time – where had the lube been? – and Dean’s hot skin that Sam finally found the nerve to actually touch. Roam hands over his back, clutch his ass to pull him nearer. Hell, yes!

He was thankful when Dean rolled them over because that meant getting rid of those goddamn trousers and boxers. Sam couldn’t break the kiss, he just couldn’t! and everything became a tricky mess of straining limbs until all the clothes were off.

Sam pushed into Dean’s hand and got lost in the feeling. That strength, it was everything. It was everywhere. Dean’s legs around his hips, pulling him even closer, the fingers digging into his shoulders … Dean’s lips … holy … how?

“Come on, Sam,” Dean whispered.

More? Harder? Sam rutted against the willing body under him, desperate for all the friction he could get.

“I’m prepared, come on.”

Sam was pushed backward, away from the kiss that should have never ended. Resting on his outstretched arms, he was reduced to the feeling of the hand still around their dicks, pumping them much too lightly.

“What?” he asked breathlessly.

“Just shove it in. I’m ready.”

And then Dean spread his legs a little wider, hips straining against Sam and lust became complete chaos in a millisecond when Sam realized what Dean meant.

“Come on!” Urgent, certain. A directive that wouldn’t accept backtalk. “Sam, now!”

And as if remote-controlled, Sam positioned himself, hesitated until something was slapped against his shoulder. He grabbed the package and ripped it open with his teeth, rolled the condom on so fast that Dean’s hand coating it in lube could barely keep up.

It was all one fluid motion, even the push through the tight ring of muscles. God, so tight, but gradually relaxing, yielding under the pressure to invite him deeper.

A groan had Sam look up. Wide eyed, open mouth gasping for breath, and minute emotions flitting over his face, Dean’s completely disheveled expression threw Sam off track, but when he halted, the temporary ambiguity disappeared.

“Move!” Dean rasped and began himself, setting Sam’s body alight with pleasure. His arms buckled and he leaned on his elbows, listening to Dean’s breathing while his body did what it wanted, too fast, too erratic, deep shoves that had no finesse and were just designed to unleash what was creeping up on him.

All sounds faded away. His lungs stopped functioning. Another stroke, slow this time, and another, so forceful that it had almost made him black out, and then everything came back at once in a delirious high, his dick unloading spurt after spurt until Sam’s arms threatened to give way.

Exhausted, he slipped out and rolled to the side, the automatism of having to dispose of a condom taking over. Pulling it off, tying a knot, aiming for the trash can.

 _Okay done._ Now he just had to turn around again. Face Dean … God, Dean …!

Sam’s throat constricted when reality settled on his shoulders like a lead weight. He heard rustling and when he turned around, Dean was already getting dressed.

“Don’t you want me to make you …” Sam started, but fell silent when Dean grimaced.

“We’re done.”

That tone again. Alarmed, Sam reached for his jeans and put them on before he grabbed the rest of his clothes, holding them in front of himself like the most ineffective shield imaginable. “But you didn’t …”

“Forget it,” Dean said, his eyes fixed on the bed. “You know what?” he asked and shook his head to himself. “Part of me thought you didn’t have the guts. Guess you proved me wrong. I have to give you that.”

Face still inscrutable, Dean looked up, and slowly, the words penetrated Sam’s mind. “What?” The last vestiges of sexual relaxation fled his body, leaving it in complete turmoil.

“But I guess I managed to show you where things would end if you insisted on your self-made rehab for me.” Dean turned around and walked to the table to grab a can of soda.

“You … it was just … you wanted to teach me a lesson?” Sam asked. This wasn’t happening, right?

“Whatever, we’re even.” Dean drank from the soda, sat down at the table and opened his laptop.

“Dean…” Sam began, but, really, he didn’t know what to say in the light of what Dean had done.

 _What I have done,_ Sam corrected himself inwardly. He should have realized what was going on, shouldn’t he?

“So, now can we please do our job again?” Dean snarled.

That cruel, cold voice unerringly achieved its aim. Sam nodded and left the room. His legs wobbly, he staggered along, but if he had to describe the feeling, there was just one comparison and it terrified him above all else.

Not simply his body was numb. Everything was. Exactly as if he had lost his soul again.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betad, as always, by the imperturbable daydreamernv!


	16. Chapter 16

Shell-shocked, Dean remained at the table, but his eyes had ceased relaying anything sensible minutes ago. There was something else he should do anyway. He should shower, wash off any remnants of what had just happened.

It wasn’t really calming, though, and the soap stung, reminding him that he hadn’t been on the receiving end in a very long time. And what was the craziest of all, it was somehow still connected with the fear of almost getting caught by Dad – although Dad most likely wouldn’t have objected.

_I just didn’t want to find out._

And ten years ago, the whole thing wouldn’t have happened if it hadn’t been for that shitty town at the end of nowhere. No bar or girl in a hundred mile radius and too many nasties to take care of. The motel owner’s son had been convenient, that had been the only reason, right?

That’s what Sam had said, too. It was convenient. Slap a cooling patch on that itch and everything’s fine.

Although nothing was, not back then and not now. Hazy memories of rushed sex were refreshed by an unspeakable act, and Dean adjusted the water temperature a little, from hot to almost scalding because his back and shoulders still hurt so much from the strain.

It had cost him to hold back. To avoid coming. But the moment Sam had given up, he couldn’t help following. Thankfully, Sam had turned away afterward and the rest went almost as if scripted.

_Wipe off hand inside trousers. Put on trousers and T-shirt. Carry on with original plan._

Sam would never know. He just needed to see the carefully arranged piece performed for him.

Breathing in, Dean switched off the water and then toweled off. Whatever he did from now on, he had to stay consistent. A weakening resolve just because he couldn’t deal with the outcome of his actions wouldn’t help anybody.

So he returned to the main room and collected empty packages and bottles to throw them in the trash, burying the used condom that he knew was in there somewhere.

He could do that, he could …

Inhaling again, Dean sat down at the table and unlocked the laptop only to discover that his mind still didn’t want to process information. It felt like someone had peeled off his skin, leaving him as easy prey for the terrors that lurked everywhere, but at the same time his lips were tingling, promising salvation from whatever torment he inflicted on himself.

Involuntarily, he looked at his fingers that lay useless on the keyboard. Those fingers had first stretched and loosened, learning that they hadn’t forgotten anything about the procedure. And then, set free, they had just touched and touched as if they were starving for sensory input.

Dean coughed, suppressing the queasy dizziness that reliably accompanied images like that.

And Sam? Had lost his mind, for sure. That was the only explanation. All this ‘things overlap’ bullshit! This was _The Shining_ meets _Hotel New Hampshire_!

Hanging his head, Dean tried to focus. Everything was slipping away and whatever he did, the outcome was even more catastrophic than the previous situation.

_If Cas was here, he would know._

Dean shook his head. Cas would pity him, explain everything as just human nature although the best solution would be to deal with it Sodom and Gomorrah style.

 _But Cas isn’t here._ He had let Cas down and now he was losing Sam.

“Damn it!” Dean exclaimed and hit his fist on the table so hard that the laptop jumped. In a welcome fit of activity, he packed clothes, weapons and vending machine food before he walked back to the farm.

The only thing that had always helped him find an aim in his life was work.

It should have been worrisome that inside the house it became clear that nothing human lived there, furniture turned over, a stove that had to be at least a hundred years old and moth-eaten curtains hanging in shreds. Dean turned on the faucet and was surprised that, after some groaning in the pipes, water started flowing. It was brown, yeah, but after half an hour, it became clear again.

That demon had to have a thing for garden maintenance, though, because around the house everything was rather well-groomed.

Perhaps it was one of the villagers who had his eye on the fruit trees. The apples seemed to be ripe, the branches hanging low from their weight. Dean pulled one of them a little closer and ripped off the reddest apples, stuffing them into his pockets.

He huffed out a laugh. What a misleading picture he had to present: a regular guy picking apples, not a full-time hunter squatting in a demon’s lair.

Or even better: a casual murderer taking some time off from an adventure in incest.

His mind shied away from the expression, but he forced himself to repeat it. _Incest_ , that’s what it was, right? Before Sam had …

Letting go of the branch, Dean leaned on the tree trunk where unbidden images rained down on him. With some effort, he channeled them.

… before Sam had fucked him, there was still the delusion that it could be merely a physical thing. Yet to be honest, ever since that blowjob in the shower, that didn’t really work anymore.

Incest it was, then, although it didn’t fit. It didn’t feel right, that word. But who’d want to be pegged a sex offender? Of course his mind rejected that notion.

And Sam? Dean didn’t want to picture what Sam thought about the whole mess, and he would never find out because this conversation? They’d never have it. Ever!

If not because of what happened, Sam was most likely worried regardless, at least if he had tried to make contact. Dean switched on his phone and of course there were a number of missed calls and texts.

Reluctantly, Dean wrote a perfunctory message about his whereabouts and then returned inside the house to check if its state of repair allowed a somewhat safe place to stay. With some luck, Sam would remain in the hotel, too spooked by what they had done, and he would accept the part of the text that assured him that his help wasn’t needed.

Or he would ignore it all.

Dean briefly squeezed his eyes shut and exhaled loudly, trying to acknowledge the fact that someone was rattling at the front door.

“Dean?”

Not the mud monster. Pity.

With as much concentration as he could muster, Dean continued to loosen the rusted screws of the woodstove. If he could open the door, he could get it working again.

“Hey, Dean.”

A brief glance over his back – were Sam’s eyes red-rimmed? – and Dean turned his attention back to his work, bracing himself for what he had to do again.

He wasn’t going back a month in time. He would reset everything to zero and hopefully, there would be something left to build up a new life with.

“I don’t need you here,” Dean said, and carefully pulled on the iron door.

“But there’s–”

“Let me rephrase that: I wished you had stayed in the motel,” Dean interjected. There, the door was open. “But as you’re here now, has anything turned up in your research?” The ensuing silence told Dean that he had pinpointed his leverage. He got up and folded up his army knife. “So no research? You think the monsters just turn up with a white flag from now on?”

Sam’s scowl didn’t make it into words, so Dean notched up his performance once more. “Oh yeah, I forgot your new priorities: staring at the wall and doing nothing.”

“Cut it out, Dean!”

Blocking everything else, Dean’s mind chanted his slogan. _Carry on. You can do it!_

“Good thing you can’t look at yourself in the mirror anyway anymore,” he barked. “So what’s another widow grieving for her husband, right?”

“Stop that!” Sam shouted. “You’re right, I’m useless, I’m a freak, I get it!”

“But I can’t seem to hear it often enough,” Dean retorted and his blood froze in his veins when he forced himself to continue. “Because that’s what you are. A freak.”

“You f– ” Sam started before he reconsidered. Dean was sure he would have formulated a fitting comeback. Breathing heavily and muscles tense, Sam was nevertheless one step away from lashing out. If he did, it would be even more effective.

“Don’t have the guts?” Dean quoted himself and suppressed every defensive mechanism that wanted to come to his aid when Sam launched his attack. It would have been useless anyway because Sam just grabbed the wooden coffee grinder from the stove and smashed it against the wall.

The howl like a wounded animal made Dean flinch. And the hate-filled look in Sam’s eyes assured him that, despite of what he had hoped, _nothing_ would be left to serve as a foundation of a new life.

Turning away to hide his misery, Dean gave his attention to the stove again. He was glad that it was gradually becoming darker, so the wretchedness of the whole situation wouldn’t be illuminated by the unforgiving light of day. “You can sleep first, we’ll take turns. I guess you still know how to do that.”

Puttering about with God knew what, Sam followed his orders and when all the pipes and hinges of the stove had been made workable, Dean went outside for a quick check of the perimeter. On his return, Sam was lying on the ratty mattress that Dean had pulled into the living room a little earlier, rolled up in his sleeping bag, facing the wall. If he was asleep or not wasn’t clear, but he wouldn’t move either way because that meant enduring even more verbal abuse.

Dean clutched the shotgun he had taken outside even harder and sat down in a corner of the room, facing all entrances.

Maybe the monster would pay them a visit.

 _And if it doesn’t, I’m still here to replace it._ Dean inhaled, suppressing the soundless sniveling that welled up in him.

Sam was out of his mind, misguided, whatever it was, he hadn’t deserved such a trap. But now the wheels were set in motion and Sam had his personal demon who did nothing but keep up the level of emotional harm.

It was for the best. It would prevent them both from losing it. And Sam didn’t even have to kill him for it, it was killing him already.

Grinding his teeth, Dean took out his cellphone and distracted himself with research until it was time to wake up Sam. As if he was pulling over a different personality, Dean steeled his mind for the position of the executioner.

He grabbed an apple to throw at Sam’s head and, waking with a start, battle ready, Sam shot up.

“What?”

“Your turn,” Dean grumbled.

Sam rubbed his head. “What the hell was that?”

“Your vitamins.” Dean pointed his flashlight at the apple, alleviating the effect Sam’s horrified face had on him.

_I can do that._

Without giving him another look, Dean took his place in the sleeping bag, and that sanctuary that smelled like Sam and radiated his body heat put him to sleep almost instantly.

 

****

 

When he woke up, the sun was already shining through the closed shutters. The sleeping bag had become uncomfortably warm, so Dean instantly emerged from it. Sam wasn’t anywhere in the room. Or out front, as a quick peek showed.

“Dean, are you up?”

The voice came from the back of the house and Dean found Sam sitting on the edge of the worn deck, sipping coffee from a can. Without turning his head, he handed Dean another can and then pointed at the stack of cookies wrapped in plastic next to him.

“I found out about that creature,” Sam said when Dean sat down on the deck as well. “It’s a Scandinavian water spirit. Well, of the swampy kind.”

“How do we gank it?” Dean asked.

“Draw it out with a spell, kill it with another,” Sam answered, still staring at the river.

“And what do we need?” Dean tried to make his voice sound as matter of fact as possible, but the sad little laugh Sam gave at the question didn’t bode well.

“Some ingredients we have in the car. And paint.”

Another ironic laugh, and Dean needed a moment to understand. Before they had … yeah, Sam had first thought he had wanted to prepare a ritual …

“I’m gonna go fetch the stuff,” Sam grunted and got up. “I sent you everything I’ve found.”

Thankful that he didn’t have to deal with Sam’s abrupt departure, Dean sipped the lukewarm coffee and read the instructions on his phone. They surely had the herbs with them and as for the other part: at least it wasn’t some full body paint crap. That had already been awkward before.

Although he offered his mind a distraction in the form of a chocolate chip cookie, his thoughts insisted on going to all the times he had covered Sam in ancient symbols or Sam had done the same to him.

 _Concentrate, focus …._ Dean closed his eyes, arousal flooding him, and only the loud snapping of a twig put a halt to his imagination’s pleasure trip. It was merely a badger on its way home, though, not the monster.

 _God, I wish it was that giant Swedish meatball,_ Dean thought to himself. But the sucker stayed where it was and instead, Sam arrived back much too soon. Dean heaved himself up, the empty plastic wrappers rustling in his pocket.

“You sure those are the right ones?” he asked Sam.

Sam’s scowl intensified even more when Dean took the ingredients out of his hands. “Yes, I am,” he muttered. “And who’s going to play the priest?”

“You.” The idea of Sam touching him in any way was too dangerous, so Dean reached for the paint as well while Sam dutifully rolled up his sleeves.

To make it easier, Dean sat down on a three-legged stool and enlarged the depiction of the priest on his phone. The patterns seemed easy enough to copy, zigzags and lines mostly, but a couple of intricate forms were part of it as well, and it would need time to draw them.

But there’d be no lectures about Proto-Germanic as at other times. No remarks about which runes you’d be fined for in Germany today.

Dean dipped the brush into the can and began to draw in silence. It was work, nothing else, the soft strokes on twitching muscles while hair was flattened by the paint. The view of faded scars and slight goosebumps that Sam could never suppress. And that Sam was so close, the tanned skin just a brush away had always been a part of the procedure, yes, it was just a procedure after all.

Dean inhaled, looking up to give his mind something else to focus on only to be caught up in Sam’s direct gaze.

“I’ll be ready in a minute,” Dean whispered, trying to turn his head away. “Keep your fucking arm still,” he added gruffly and Sam compressed his lips, keeping himself from responding, it seemed.

In a hurry, Dean finished and when he had put a bit of distance between them, he could function again. He recited the spell, added incense to the mixture and then they waited until it became painfully clear that nothing would happen. As a mere show of activity, Sam did his part as well, but nothing.

“Goddammit!” Dean swore. “I thought I’d finally get to kill something! What the hell did you overlook?”

Of course, Sam would accept the accusation without questioning it.

“I dunno,” Sam answered and hastened to go through the runes again.

“You know what? Get outta here, go back to the motel, and do your homework,” Dean interrupted him. “I’ll wait here. That sucker might return.”

“I won’t leave you alone!” But all the fight had left Sam. There was no real opposition in his voice.

“Believe me, I don’t mind,” Dean snarled, and the hint of anger in Sam’s face became such profound sadness that Dean’s front almost shattered, making it difficult to maintain the stony gaze until, at last, Sam turned around and left the house with the expected slamming of the door.

Exhaling, Dean leaned against the nearest wall. This was too much. He couldn’t keep this up.

“I have to,” he reminded himself, but his voice was as breathless as after a ten-mile run. _Do something. Fix stuff. Drink. Eat!_

Tunnel vision in place, he staggered to the bag with vending machine food. An apple tart was the least nauseating, so he unwrapped it only to put it back immediately because merely the smell of food turned his stomach.

“Get a fucking grip!” he ordered himself and wandered around the house aimlessly, torn between the need to simply walk out and leave for good and the desire to curl up in the sleeping bag again. At one point, he found himself in the bathroom, and hell, why not, maybe that would wake him up or sharpen his mind!

Cold water was shooting out of the wall from a pipe which perhaps had had a shower head of some sort attached once and Dean closed the valve so that the water wouldn’t be pelting down on him like an icy torrent. Resisting his efforts, the faucet instead only allowed for a weak jet that, once he had undressed, flowed down his shoulders rather comfortably at first.

Sitting down on the edge of the mossy tub and leaning against the tiles, Dean breathed in. He needed to make things right. Now. And for that to happen, he had to endure the hateful looks and the distance. He could do that.

The water slowly draining warmth from his body, Dean rested his arms and head on his knees, no matter if his back was fully exposed to the cold. And the fact that he was losing feeling in his toes and fingers fit right in the picture because losing feeling was what his life had become, hadn’t it?

A sob tore through him, and then another one, but then the cold supplanted the grief, shaking his body although his senses couldn’t relay anything to his brain any longer. That unfeeling numbness that he forced upon himself when interacting with Sam now took over his body and he didn’t even have to do anything to enforce it.

“Dean!”

The water stopped, but all Dean could think was that he had to buckle on his armor and everything would start anew once again.

“Leave me alone!” he croaked and jerked away when he felt Sam’s hand on his shoulder. That warm, strong hand…

But Sam returned and Dean heard him step into the tub before a towel was wrapped around his shoulders and unyielding arms embraced him without mercy, resisting any attempt to shake them off. So, Dean deflated, warmth creeping into his body, and the trembling became sobbing again, although perhaps it wasn’t him but Sam, or them both, he couldn’t tell and he didn’t care.

“Don’t …” Sam started before his voice choked up. “Dean, please stop this!”

The embrace became even fiercer and Dean knew that he was only kept together by those arms. “We have to put things back … back to zero, Sam,” he whispered. “We have to …”

“And we will!” Sam blurted out. “But not like this, okay? I won’t survive this! Please, Dean, please!”

Dean buried his face even more in his elbows. “I don’t know where this all came from, Sam!” he rasped. “I swear, before this I’ve never … ever thought about you like … like _that_.”

“I know!” Sam’s voice sounded a little steadier. “And I’ll do what you want, just stop pushing me away like that! You won’t have to worry about anything. Dean, look at me!”

Reluctantly, Dean raised his head and almost turned it away again in light of the desperation on Sam’s face.

“You want a fresh start?” Sam continued. “I’ll do whatever it takes, you hear me?”

Lost for words, Dean paused, his mind returning to that impossible place of the day before. It shouldn’t have been like that, his calculations had insisted. It should have been repulsive, unthinkable and put an end to the whole course of events.

Just that it didn’t. And that was why that terrible word had felt so wrong. _Incest_. Because amidst all the perversion, there had been something so unexpectedly pure and uncorrupted that it couldn’t be soiled.

 _A kiss like that can’t be evil,_ flitted through Dean’s head and it added another notion that made him tense up in shame immediately. But it was true, wasn’t it? Because without the fallout after their encounter, Sam would probably be kissing him right now, and there was nothing Dean wanted more.

_I’m the monster._

“We’ll do our job and we’ll start this instant,” Sam began again. “That’s why I came back, you see? I mulled over the background of the spell and you were right, it was my mistake. I messed up the translation. It wasn’t _of old_ but just _old_. You had to do the spell, Dean, you’re the old geezer.”

A pitiful attempt at lightening the mood, but Dean forced his mouth to imitate a thin smile. He had demanded zero hour, and this was it. Everything else didn’t count.

“Give me a minute,” Dean said and Sam’s eyes softened, losing some of their most acute distress. He nodded and left, even closing the partly unhinged door behind him.

 _This is zero hour,_ Dean repeated inwardly, and the feeling of loss chilled him more than his cold, wet skin.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you think that it's time to bring this thing to a close, you're absolutely right. Thankfully, my dear beta daydreamernv still believes that it's going to happen eventually (despite my losing faith in myself more than once). Cheers to hope!


	17. Chapter 17

Sam had been grinding herbs with more force than necessary, the heartbeat drumming against his ribs refusing to subside, when a noise made him look up.

 _Dean_. He appeared to be quite shaken, which was no wonder, and Sam withstood the urge to comfort him again.

“Could you stir the paint?” he asked instead, and Dean unscrewed the plastic lid.

That would keep him occupied. Deflect his attention from Sam’s unsteady hands that applied remover to his arms and rubbed off the runes in order to avoid interference during the spell. It was a calming procedure somehow and he definitely needed to relax because otherwise he wouldn’t be able to draw properly.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw that Dean was already standing motionless in the middle of the room, waiting to be treated with the paint, and although Sam still had to clear his thoughts some more, his shock at finding Dean in a state of mental breakdown was gradually wearing off.

 _I’m not going to let you come to harm,_ Sam promised inwardly when he sat down to start drawing. An exaggerated show of keeping a distance, sure, and not a single touching of Dean’s arm, just brush strokes. Dean had gone through enough and definitely bitten off more than he could chew.

Dean said it himself. Those thoughts were completely new to him. He didn’t know how it was to live with the question of what the soulless bastard version of himself would have done to his brother.

_Rape him or kill him just for sport. Everything would’ve been possible had humanity left me for good._

Sam froze for a moment before he continued drawing. Dean hadn’t taken this scenario seriously because, well, nothing had happened, right? It was just a figment of his imagination.

Trying to suppress the anger that gripped him, Sam slowed down again.

A figment that Dean had made reality. And oh, of course he would protest this because it had been consensual, right? Except for the fact that this disbelieving expression on Dean’s face had been surprise and not amazement, and wasn’t that a great realization to go on living with?

His mind in complete chaos, and worry, anger and guilt warring over which one could distract him more, the lines Sam was drawing again became less precise. Inhaling, he concentrated on his work, but there was barely anything he could do about this mess, right? He was just fucking helpless and everything was over anyway!

A glance at Dean revealed that he was staring at the wall, stone-faced but for a slight frown. He seemed older somehow and there were hints of lines around his mouth … Sam blinked. That mouth which had just kissed him to silence any opposition. Cold and calculating.

But how could that moment have been a lie? It had felt so right.

Misery swept away all other sentiments like a spring tide, leaving only empty, barren land. Sam swallowed against the lump in his throat.

“Ready?”

Only because he had been staring at Dean’s lips did Sam realize that Dean had spoken.

“Almost.” Sam finished the last rune and then checked the rest again before he got up. Automatically, his eyes were again drawn to Dean’s mouth, replaying that perfect kiss, and no matter what Dean’s motivation had been, his mind would always remember it like that. And above all, it wasn’t part of any horror scenarios involving his soulless self.

“What?” Dean barked.

“Nothing,” Sam hastened to answer before he could make a mistake and tell Dean about that last thought.

“Okay, then let’s start,” Dean said and began to chant the incantation. Although he knew the procedure, his mind didn’t seem to be completely on the task somehow and when he came to an end, the air changed and it looked as if Dean was surrounded by a bubble of strange, swirling energy.

Sam reached out and felt a barrier repelling him. Inside of it, Dean had frozen, he didn’t even blink. Or breathe!

 _Fuck!_ Sam worked his way hectically through the second spell and the moment he finished he was sure he saw something move to his right, but it was too fast. And it didn’t matter what it was because Dean obviously still couldn’t breathe in his invisible prison, his face showing that he was trying to inhale but couldn’t!

Sam whipped round, drew his gun and shot at the shadow on his right that he felt more than saw. “Leave me alone, I need to think!” He was sure he had hit it, but the bullet went through it and into the wall.

 _Okay, no gun. Knife out. Check the spell_. But taking his eyes off the phone to scan for the spirit threw him off track again and again.

“The shadow can’t stand against the opposite,” Sam read. What the fuck was that supposed to mean? What opposite? It’s a water spirit, so ground? Fire?

Sam fumbled in his jacket and found the lighter, but the moment he stepped forward a moldy smell wafted under his nose. He turned quickly and slashed at the lump of swamp that disappeared again. Before it could return or he could reconsider his course of action, Sam lit the lighter and just holding it in the general direction of Dean made whatever was choking him ignite with such force that Sam had to turn away to protect his eyes.

A dull thud. “Dean!” Sam exclaimed and dropped to the floor on his knees to feel Dean’s pulse. _Don’t be dead! Not now, not when I didn’t_ … but it was there, thank God, although Dean was still unconscious. “Come on, Dean!”

“Dammit,” Dean growled weakly and Sam knew he shouldn’t put his hand on Dean’s face or squeeze his arm reassuringly. There was that part of him that couldn’t be held back, though, and it had to feel that life hadn’t left Dean, that he was warm and his muscles were flexing. When that need was fulfilled, Sam let go of Dean as if he was toxic.

“Sorry.” It didn’t sound like it, but before Dean could reply, there was a loud rumbling outside. Simultaneously, they jumped up and barricaded an entrance each, putting whatever they could in front of the doors to keep the supernatural late-comers out of the kitchen.

“I guess that’s the brethren that thing was talking about,” Sam said and Dean gave him a questioning look. “When it was about to drown us. I should’ve told you, I know.”

“Damn it, Sam!”

But loud rattling interrupted them. Sam held up his smartphone to indicate that they should do research as long as the doors held – which wouldn’t be long, going by the sounds of splintering wood.

“Pretty hands-on, for spirits!” Dean exclaimed, but Sam concentrated on his task. He needed to because they’d die otherwise. Just like Dean had nearly died a minute ago, gone without knowing what had been most important.

Sam breathed in. “I don’t regret all of it,” he muttered, peering to the side.

“What?” Dean briefly looked at Sam, but then turned to the phone again. “Here it says that the preacher is relieved of his duty. That’s it, nothing more!”

Sam searched for the passage Dean had mentioned and read the Latin version. “Get rid of the runes!” he shouted. “It’s _cleansed_ and not _relieved_!”

He was aware of the dark shadows breaking through the doors, smelled the foul breath and heard the growling closing in. Yet Sam focused only on the location of the remover – Dammit, where had he put it? That’s it, the sink!

He pulled Dean with him and poured the lotion over his arm before he started rubbing frantically. The moment the paint became a large, dark smudge, there was a sudden stillness in the room, and Sam knew their attackers were gone.

The danger was over, or wasn’t it? Because somehow his senses were still on high alert and, thinking about it, it was hardly surprising because the warmth of Dean’s skin was permeating through the lotion, reaching Sam’s hand and making him aware that he was still clutching Dean’s forearm. And Dean’s other hand was there, too, his fingers touching Sam’s.

Dean looked up and their eyes locked. “We should check for more of those critters,” Dean whispered and cleared his throat.

“Yeah.” Still staring, Sam breathed in deeply. He wouldn’t break a promise he had made roughly an hour ago! Simply letting their arms sink managed to get them apart, but they couldn’t step back, at least Sam knew he couldn’t.

Dean hunched one of his shoulders and sniffed it. “I stink of soot. And you of cold sweat, little fraidy cat.”

“Still have to get used to incinerating you,” Sam gave back.

It would be wholesome to hug now. Slap each other on the back. Bitch. Jerk. _Anything!_

“Let’s pack up and go back to the motel,” Dean said instead and Sam smiled weakly and nodded. He had given Dean a promise and he would keep it, do his inspection round, collect their material and stuff everything in his duffel, and finally say goodbye to the spirits that were only dark stains on the floor now.

“You think we have to burn down the house?” Sam asked.

“Nah,” Dean answered. “Would be a pity for the garden.”

Sam looked around and for the first time, the indiscriminate green became the orchard it actually was. He let Dean go ahead and reached up to pick some apples he slipped into the side pocket of the bag. Who knew when they would get real food again?

Slowly, he followed Dean down the path they had taken so often by now, with its early afternoon sun, the light breeze and the swaying grass, and owing to the constant life on the road, some days with the same scenery almost felt like home. Although somehow, the more he caught up with Dean, the less familiar were the surroundings.

 _No wonder,_ Sam thought. The trees might be the same, yet the way he now looked at Dean would always feel alien. Jacket in hand, Dean sauntered along, bow-legged and broad shouldered like always. Just that in the past weeks, that tower of strength had turned into a vast composition of striking details that threatened to throw Sam off course the more he approached.

And he didn’t even have to see the mouth or the bicep. The hair on Dean’s stomach could be covered with enough plaid to upholster the Impala with, it didn’t matter. Even though he could only see Dean’s neck, the feeling of his stubble rubbing along sensitive skin was still there, etched into Sam’s mind.

Impossible to resist. That’s how it seemed. But they had conquered more difficult enemies.

Sam faced what was left of the road again when he caught up with Dean – just to be on the safe side – and they walked in silence. Dean wasn’t quite at ease, kneading his fingers in an audible way, however Sam was convinced that the irritation would wear off with time.

“What was it?” Dean asked out of nowhere.

 Sam gave him a glance before he trained his eyes on the pavement again. “What was what?”

“What you don’t regret,” Dean clarified, and Sam’s hand gripped the duffel tighter. He had hoped Dean hadn’t caught that among the confusion.

“Nothing.”

The sound of the steps next to him weren’t included with the chirping and rustling around them anymore and Sam heaved a sigh before he also stopped.

“Hey!”

Obediently, Sam looked up. “It’s not important,” he assured Dean, who just cocked his head and glowered back.

“We were about to die, Sam,” he grunted. “So hell yeah, I think it was important!”

“Just forget it!” Sam tried to match the angry scowl he was given, but Dean didn’t let himself be deterred.

“I bet I know what it is,” he said with so much conviction that Sam’s false self-confidence was butchered by fear, clogging up the blood in his veins.

“Wow, great, so then we can move on, can’t we?” Sam replied, his voice hoarse. He prepared to turn around and continue walking when Dean stepped forward and clutched his jacket to hold him back.

“It was the kiss, right?” Dean asked and Sam knew that compressing his lips instead answering was already giving him away.

“It was weird, wasn’t it?” Dean muttered.

God, why didn’t he just let it go? Sam dropped the duffel on the ground.

“That it didn’t feel more wrong,” Dean continued. “It should’ve.”

 _Of course it should have! And everything else that followed!_ Impatiently, Sam threw his arms in the air. “I dunno, you see, perhaps it paled in comparison to us _fucking_ , or something!” he snarled and Dean’s face twitched. That word caused physical pain – especially for Dean because he clearly hadn’t enjoyed that … act.

“You know that’s not the reason,” Dean maintained.

“Can’t you just leave it alone?”

Dean remained silent, undecided, eyebrows knitted and holding Sam’s gaze, and, despite the uneasiness Sam should feel, his treacherous mind only stumbled on the stubble on Dean’s face and the specks of dust on his skin.

Each black smudge detailed by the sun, perfectly identifiable for someone who wanted to brush it off. Perhaps a thumb going for Dean’s lower lip where the soot was clinging too. It would be even easier to wet a finger and swipe the black dust away, or better, to treat it directly and lick it …

Taken aback, Sam shook himself out of his reverie. So that was what his promises were worth. Nothing. He was definitely an animal.

“I need to know,” Dean said, and when Sam wanted to retreat Dean clutched the jacket harder.

“You can’t be serious!” Sam exclaimed. “We’re running in circles!”

But Dean was calm, steadfast. “I need to know,” he pressed out.

Sam gritted his teeth. Inhaled and then held his breath before he bent down and positioned his mouth on Dean’s. Chaste, with minimal movement and just a hint of tongue to experience the burnt taste of soot on soft lips.

Dean was completely unmoving, which made it easier to draw back, but by God, it was still the hardest thing Sam had ever done because he needed to pull Dean into the field and do, well, he didn’t care, whatever came to their minds, and he had to do it now!

Battling down his arousal, Sam kept his hands in check and anxiously watched Dean’s face that didn’t betray any emotion.

“Okay?” Sam asked, yet the complete panic that now broke forth in Dean’s expression was answer enough. He looked as if he was about to throw up, chest heaving and eyes wide. The fist holding Sam’s jacket unclenched.

“Did you feel that?” Dean whispered, and Sam tilted his head back in exasperation.

“Of course I’ve felt that!” he ranted. “What do you think? You can’t be still under the illusion that this is therapy gone wrong! God, Dean, you’re not stupid!” Stupid, no. But clearly rattled, it seemed, and going by the helpless expression, there was nothing he could do about it at the moment, so Sam went on. “How much more proof do you need until you see that I’m exactly the freak that you take me to be!” he shouted and took a step back.

“Sam, you’re not–”

“Stop trying to gloss it over, Dean!” Sam interjected. “I fucking _came_ in you!”

“I was there, I remember!” Dean retorted. “But that’s not –”

“You got dressed and told me to get ready for work!” Sam couldn’t believe that Dean still didn’t grasp the point. “Don’t you see the difference?”

“Screw that, Sam, who cares?” Dean looked around as if he was occupied with something else and the whole exchange annoyed him. “And if it helps, I was trying to suppress the pain on the inside of my cheek because I had bitten it too hard. And you know why? To avoid making a sound! And then I got rid of my spunk while you weren’t looking.”

He explained everything in such a matter-of-fact tone that Sam almost lost self-control because, dammit, what the hell?

“And _then_ I got dressed,” Dean added. “But you’re running off topic!”

“What? I’m what?” Sam shook his head. How could Dean –?

“But now, just before, you said that you felt it too, right?” Dean closed the gap between them again. “How did it feel?”

Sam huffed out an annoyed breath. “Good. Great. What about phenomenal?” he spat, but Dean’s inquisitive gaze intensified.

“Then do it again.”

For a second, Sam was more inclined to give him a left hook. What the fuck was he thinking? “I made a promise after you beseeched me to leave all this behind, Dean!”

“And now I beg you to do it again.”

For someone who had just been close to gagging, he appeared remarkably composed.

“Doesn’t sound like pleading,” Sam said and prepared for a witty comeback. Dean was still waiting, though, earnest face, a small challenge in his eyes, but no more. In all seriousness asking Sam to give up what he had sworn on the same day.

_That fucker!_

Sam took a minute break, his whole body in an alarming stranglehold of aversion and desire before he swooped down on Dean in the most ridiculously clichéd embrace he could muster. Chaste became pornographic almost instantly, an open-mouthed provocation that took Sam’s own breath away. His tongue searched for a playmate and claimed it, but that wasn’t enough. God, he needed more!

Stubble prickled and then started to chafe when Sam pressed his hand against the back of Dean’s head and his arm intensified its hold around Dean’s middle. Light-headed, he licked into Dean’s mouth, chests heaving against and their crotches meeting in the best of ways. Oh yes …

_Oh no!_

Sam tried to withdraw completely, but his sneaky mouth lightly remained on Dean’s lips and only a Herculean effort could finally make his legs move and step back.

“So there!” Sam snarled to hide his embarrassment.

And Dean? Stood there as if nothing had happened, just the slight glistening of his lips told of what had been done to him.

“Yeah,” Dean said. Was he assenting or simply stating a fact? He wouldn’t clarify it, so much was obvious, as he picked up Sam’s duffel and headed for the motel again.

Sam watched him walk away. “Damn it, Dean,” he murmured. A more energetic outlet of his frustration fell flat as most of his strength was needed to overcome his disgust with himself. “What the hell?” he sighed before following Dean like a well-trained dog.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And sadly I can only virtually hug daydreamernv who stood by me through thick and thin!


	18. Chapter 18

One step. Another one. Then another. And the road dictated the direction, which was more than convenient because Dean’s mind was just floating along with no real reliance on higher faculties and gladly reduced itself to a world of pure feeling.

Weird. Good weird. Best weird of all.

In a daze, Dean followed Sam to his room and handed him the duffel he had been carrying.

“Food?” Sam asked, and it sounded a bit hurried.

“Yeah, something that’s not wrapped in foil,” Dean answered, taking in his beautiful baby brother, all wild hair and critical eyes. Yup, there it was again, that shockingly strong emotion that made him almost nauseous with euphoria. “I’ll just get rid of the soot.”

Sam nodded and remained on the doorstep, posing a welcome reason for Dean’s mind to wander again.

“I still have your toothbrush,” Sam said after a while and unpacked the small and almost empty bag that Dean had taken with him to the farm.

There was no need to stay any longer and Dean’s flustered brain couldn’t come up with a sensible excuse. “I’ll pick you up in fifteen.”

Sam raised an eyebrow. “Hungry much?” he asked but closed the door before Dean could answer.

 _Yeah, sure,_ Dean thought, walking to his room. _Hungry_.

The quick shower was over in a heartbeat and after Dean had dressed in the only plain-colored shirt he owned that wasn’t white, he still had more than three minutes left and that immediately started to feel like an eternity. Sighing, he looked at himself in the mirror. He was a handsome devil for sure. And in two minutes – no, one – he could go and collect Sam.

“Damn,” he swore without inflection and left the room. But the nearer he approached Sam’s door, the more his initial momentum faded until eventually he could barely raise his hand and knock.

It wasn’t as if he was acting all shy, or was he? Because on the short drive to the bar, he couldn’t think of any way to break the ice – not that Sam was helping, with his pinched mouth and the staring out of the window!

Sitting opposite each other in the bar, civilization surrounding them again, relaxed Sam a little, but only the arrival of the waitress ended the silence.

 “Cheeseburger and fries. And a coke,” Dean said and carefully monitored Sam’s reaction. And yeah, finally there was a smile.

“Same for me.”

At least the silence didn’t feel so oppressive any longer. They had a purpose now and looking at Sam would stop being creepy because they were waiting for their food, with the country music playing and the subdued murmur of the patrons. And honestly, Dean could go on like that for ages although Sam started fidgeting about almost imperceptibly.

“Anything wrong?” Sam mumbled, and all Dean could do was grin like an idiot, his mind a blank tile in a word that made no sense.

“Dean?”

“Yup,” Dean said to the waitress who served the food and then his synapses cheerfully snapped to attention again because, wow, he was ravenous!

That the food wasn’t good didn’t matter any longer. It was warm! And it had meat in it! Dean scarfed down the burger, but after a few of the fries he had to pause for something to drink.

 _Sweet_. Dean grimaced.

“You know, we could order some low-alcohol craft beer next time,” Sam said, mimicking Dean’s face. “Might have to find one of those pseudo-hip microbreweries, but well, at least we’re spared _that_ …”

Dean couldn’t wipe the smile off his face. Sam had read his mind.

“I wasn’t gonna condemn you to a life without beer, hell no!” Sam erupted into laughter. “Just let your liver bounce back, okay?”

“Alright,” Dean answered, but his brain signed off again because that laugh was so wonderful and untroubled, albeit short, and it set _that_ emotion free again, which was simply too much for him to handle, as if his body and mind were overtaxed.

“So we’re going back to the cabin?” Sam asked after he had finished eating. “We’ve been amassing quite a motel bill in this town.”

“If we check out now, we have to pay for the night, so we’d better leave tomorrow morning,” Dean answered and then the flash of reasonable, thrifty thinking vanished again. He sighed. “I’m bone-tired.”

Exuberance of feeling or simply exhaustion – whatever was drawing off his energy, it slowed him down to the point that he barely recognized himself. Something was in the air, and it wasn’t just the light drizzle that accompanied them to the car.

“You know that you have to turn the key, right?” Sam asked and Dean turned the ignition on. As much as he could, he focused on the road, on parking Baby, on locking her.

“At eight tomorrow morning?” Sam asked.

“Sounds good,” Dean replied and Sam left for his room, raising his hand in a casual goodbye.

Grateful that his legs carried him to his door, Dean entered his room hoping for some kind of easing of his tension. He inhaled, sat on the bed but rose again after a minute. Taking off his jacket also didn’t reassure him, so he tried sitting down again.

No, he couldn’t stay. This was all wrong, being without Sam. His Sam – who had said that he had felt something, too, and if it was just a fraction of what threatened to make Dean an overexcited nervous wreck, they had to work it out.

Hurriedly, he put on his jacket again and went to Sam’s door. However, no one answered his knock. Dean peeked through the window and there was no light inside the room and the fact that Sam hadn’t drawn the curtains was suspicious as hell.

The lock didn’t pose a big obstacle. Lights on, okay, no jacket or boots, nothing. So Sam was somewhere else in the motel, in the lobby or he had popped out to visit the vending machine, right?

Dean ran downstairs, but one glimpse showed that only the bored motel owner sat behind the counter. The vending machine right in front the entrance was also deserted, so what about the car?

Stepping out onto the wet parking lot, Dean confirmed the Impala’s presence. Fuck!

“Sam?” he called and listened. With his flashlight, he scanned the parking lot and the adjoining area, especially where pavement changed into wilderness. Despite the light rain, it looked as if the grass was flattened and ripped off in places, and some of the shrubs’ twigs were broken off and lay on the ground or hung down limply.

That was a trace, right? Or was it just coincidence?

“Dean!”

Faint and far away. And the final proof he needed.

Dean felt for his lighter and then ran to the car. Now what? A flamethrower would be good, but there was no time to improvise one, so fuck it, the tear gas had to do! He grabbed it and ran for the shrubs, fighting his way through wet leaves before the field opened before him.

Following the tracks through the high grass, he raced across the meadow and although his lungs started to burn and his legs were getting heavy, the voice calling his name spurred him on.

“Dean! Over here!”

Another one of those sons of bitches! So much Dean could finally see. The mass pulling Sam along was blacker than the night and when Dean pocketed his flashlight, he could only guess where exactly the creature was. And he just hoped that his hunch was right and the thing was weak enough after the others were dead.

He jumped forward, pressed the button of the spray canister and lit the lighter at the same time. The flame he produced was already impressive, but the ball of fire the creature turned into sent a blaze of hot air in Dean’s face.

As soon as the fire had started, it evaporated again, and Dean blinked to sharpen his impression of the moonlit surroundings.

“Dean! A little help?”

Dean looked down. “Shit, oh shit!” Sam’s trousers were burning, and without a second thought, Dean took off his jacket to all but throw himself on Sam’s legs. “Guess we missed one after all,” he puffed when the last flames were extinguished. “God, is it always gonna be those last minute rescues? I really could do without ’em.”

It wasn’t like he was expecting an answer from Sam. They were both out of breath, right? The light was weak and the rain was getting heavier, so everything was already uncomfortable enough. No reason for Sam to stare at him like that.

“What?” Dean snapped.

“Nothing,” Sam inhaled deeply. “It’s just, us in this field… This afternoon, I thought… whatever…”

Dean felt the humidity of the wet grass soak through his trousers, his knees sinking in. The rain started to cool down his hot skin.

“What’s with the damn field?” Dean ground out, but Sam continued staring until suddenly, his hand shot out to grab the collar of Dean’s shirt and pull him down while meeting him half way. Their mouths crashed together and Sam rolled them over, making the cold grass an unpleasant cushion for Dean, but who cared when Sam kissed him like that, like before, as if his life depended on it!

All Dean could do was to answer in kind because just like in the afternoon, a kiss like that would amplify that wonderful feeling. That incredible, overwhelming power that had him swimming in bliss, and hell, it did, and it came with teeth, and greedy hands and a leg pressing down on Dean’s crotch, oh Christ, that was good!

Until it ended as abruptly as it had begun. Before Dean could complain, a hand grabbed his and hauled him up.

“The ground’s turning into a swamp,” Sam said. “Let’s get back.”

Befuddled, Dean stumbled after Sam. It was almost impossible to keep pace, with his mind whirring and Sam’s goddamn long strides, and Dean only came to his senses again when he heard: “Gimme your keys.”

The door to his room opened – when had they arrived at the motel? – and then it closed again, and for some reason, no time at all had passed between the new assault by Sam’s lips and the one in the field. Around them, it was just as dark, their clothes were just as wet, only that now Sam almost ripped off their jackets and, soon after, the shirts’ buttons popped. Scarily fast, Sam dealt with the fastenings of the trousers and what was left of the clothes posed no real threat to what Sam wanted.

Oh yeah, and he was bent on it. Like a force of nature, pushing, pulling, leaving Dean no option but to match up somehow, accept the purposeful hand that aligned his dick with Sam’s and the hard strokes that propelled him towards his climax.

 _Too much, fuck, no, no!_ Peeling Sam’s hand off and then replacing it with his own, Dean slowed down the frantic pumping. It wasn’t necessary to look at Sam and see his expression, his whole body cried out for more and faster, but before Sam could seize the reins again Dean fell to his knees and swallowed Sam’s dick.

A gasp told of Sam’s surprise, and surprise was good because it would take his mind off the race to completion. Even better was the new taste, which was and wasn’t Sam, another piece added to the mosaic that Dean always thought was complete. And damn, Sam was big, not that he hadn’t realized that the last time. Sucking the tip was easy and he limited his actions to that for a while until Sam became more forceful, hands on Dean’s head, pushing into his mouth. But who cared about a bit of gagging? Dean tried to relax as much as possible, clinging to Sam’s hips to support himself.

“Oh God … I’m so sorry,” Sam blurted out, stepping back, and no, that didn’t do at all, Dean thought. Not when the smell of earth and grass and Sam was so addictive!

“No,” Dean stated and got up. Kissing had always helped, so it would do the trick now as well. “I need this,” Dean whispered. “You said you knew … you know how it feels.”

And the kiss really served as a better answer once more, a feverish delirium blazing through Dean so strongly it was almost frightening. And it jumped right over to Sam, making the soft touch of lips an inferno and embracing arms a means to maneuver Dean to the bed. However, caving in felt remarkably good, or was it Sam’s dick on his, or the fact that he didn’t have to think what to do with his hands because Sam kept their fingers interlaced.

But who would want to object when, ah … tongues could be put to so much better use and those hips gave frotting a completely new meaning.

“Be careful, Sam, don’t …” Dean gasped when his dick slid into Sam’s cleft in a decidedly dangerous way – too dangerous for sure because Sam froze instantly.

“But I want to.”

Dean was still nursing the loss of Sam’s mouth when the rest of him vanished as well and only then did he finally understand what Sam had said.

“Get the lube,” Sam commanded, snatched a bottle of water from the table and disappeared into the bathroom.

Stunned for a long while, Dean finally sat up, remembered how to use his legs and staggered to his duffel. The lube was found quickly, but the moment he held it in his hand reality clawed away the sludge in his brain.

Dean opened his hand and looked at the tube, past it at his naked body and his prominent erection, and a more effective comedown from his high was barely imaginable.

This was leaping two steps ahead again! And it would ruin everything, but stopping Sam now was impossible too.

 _Retreat!_ Without hesitation, Dean placed the lube on the table, found his soggy trousers – God knows where Sam had thrown the boxers – stuffed his obstinate erection into his jeans before he fastened them with some effort. The shirt had to be enough, too, and hell, he needed a jacket because he had to go someplace else to give Sam a chance to think things through.

Outside, he briefly regretted his decision in the face of the rain that had chosen to take its gloves off. This wasn’t rain, really, it was a fucking deluge!

Dean got out the car keys, quickly put the tear gas back in the trunk and was just about to unlock the driver’s door when the keys got ripped out of his hand.

 “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Sam shouted, grabbing Dean’s jacket and unlocking the back door at the same time. Dean knew he shouldn’t let himself be thrown into his own car – fuck! was that a beer can? – yet it seemed better than starting a fight during Noah’s Flood. He squirmed to get the can out of his back and then he had what felt like two hundred pounds of Sam on top of him, preventing him from doing anything else.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Sam snarled.

“I dunno … I … I panicked!”

“You panicked?” Sam repeated incredulously. “I asked you to fuck me and _you_ panicked?”

“I … Sam, I …” An explanation would come in handy now, but Dean knew his reservations wouldn’t convince Sam.

“We’re going to fuck, right?” Sam asked and it didn’t sound like a question at all. Arms left and right of Dean, keeping him from escaping, Sam fixed him with a gaze so firm that even the soggy dog look of lanky, dripping hair couldn’t diminish its effect.

Or maybe it added to what already seemed apocalyptic, like the red reflection of the motel’s neon sign and the hammering of the rain on the Impala’s roof. And apocalyptic was their game, right? When perdition called, they had always responded.

“Yes,” Dean breathed, not even remembering exactly what he was agreeing to.

“And if your beloved car helps you, then so be it,” Sam muttered and squirmed out of the T-shirt sticking to his skin.

“But why the rush?” Dean croaked in a last, futile attempt, but Sam kissed him, erasing all the doubts and sweeping them away in the established fashion. There was no enjoying it, though, because Sam continued moving.

“Come on, Dean, help me along!” he ordered. He didn’t need assistance, though, and managed to open his trousers and kick them off on his own. Dean tried his best to keep up, but he still had his shoes on and getting out of them was almost impossible. Yet when Sam had accomplished his task, he would help him, wouldn’t he? Or maybe not because after he had opened Dean’s trousers, he hoisted him up to sit astride him.

“The car’s too low for that!” Dean protested and started to unbutton his shirt, however Sam wasn’t interested in physics or clothes, he just grabbed Dean’s dick and began the ritual of double jerking that always worked like a charm, oh yeah, it did! “Fuck yes!”

And the cold substance that suddenly coated Sam’s fingers irritated a little, but more slick meant less grinding, which was great, wasn’t it?

So Dean gave up the struggle with his clothes and simply left it to Sam what happened because Sam wanted to go all the way and he would follow because, hell, it was Sam! And Sam’s purposeful hand directing him to their dicks to take over pleasuring them? Well, why not? With the extra lube that Sam added, it was even better, yet it didn’t seem to be enough as Sam pulled away Dean’s hand and moved closer so that Dean could reach around him.

“I said help me along!” Sam snarled.

While he could barely breathe before, it felt like he was suffocating now, with Sam almost glued to him in the stuffy air that was so humid, he couldn’t get it into his lungs anymore.

“Faster!”

Going by Sam’s impatient wriggling, the finger Dean had managed to work into that tight hole wasn’t having a great enough impact, so he wormed in a second one that didn’t meet as much resistance as the first. To give Sam a better idea of what he signed up for, Dean began to scissor his fingers a little, which was too much for Sam as he rose from Dean’s lap – only to grab Dean’s dick.

“Wait–” But Sam had already lowered himself again and for a moment, Dean swooned when his entire length was engulfed. Sam hissed through his teeth.

“We’ve got no–” Dean gasped before he was cut short because Sam started to move and lord, how he moved! He really had the hang of what to do to make it feel good, and why that was the case, Dean didn’t want to know. Sam’s lips were more captivating than those redundant thoughts and gradually, he even had a little more space to maneuver when Sam leaned back a little. So Dean could pump Sam’s neglected dick and try to find the perfect rhythm that made their kiss a clumsy, breathless grappling for lips and sent the feeling that had Dean floating to new heights.

It was stunning. Indescribable.

Dean’s hand cramped a bit and his breath caught. It was far from indescribable. The words had been right there all of the time.

 _I love you, Sam,_ he thought, and as if he had provoked a direct reaction, Sam tensed and came, his body a hot flush of pulses. A deep moan, tiny jerks into Dean’s fist, but the exhausted interval Dean expected didn’t take place.

Instead, Sam opened his eyes and although he was still panting, sadness crept into his expression.

“That’s what I had feared,” Sam said, but didn’t pull away. “That you’d change your mind…” He paused. “That’s why it had to happen now.”

The air Dean took in to respond was sucked out of his lungs by Sam’s kiss, and those slight movements of Sam’s hips shouldn’t make him so defenseless! He needed to answer! But the fucking rain on the roof and the lack of oxygen … he just couldn’t… focus, goddammit!

 _Sam!_ “Sam!” Dean came with a shout and hot tightness clenched around his dick, searing his brain when all the built-up craving of the day finally found release. Sam let him breathe and weather out his climax, but it already seemed like he was withdrawing. 

“Why would I do that? God, why would I change my mind?” Dean wheezed and before Sam could stir or draw back, Dean’s fingers acted on their own accord and clutched Sam’s waist and neck to keep him where he was.

“You made me kiss you and then nothing.” With his voice so subdued, Sam’s furrowed brows conveyed his frustration instead. Dean’s hands automatically clung to Sam more firmly. “You see, I’m glad that we got along again afterward, but Dean! There was something, I dunno, _significant_ , and you just let it drop!”

“I didn’t …” Dean began, but then pulled Sam’s face down and kissed him. This was so much better than saying that he had been too caught up in his own happiness. “I’m sorry, I should’ve … I’m sorry,” Dean muttered and searched Sam’s lips again.

And even through the infernal noise of the rain and the layers of damp clothing, Dean sensed the tension melting, the gentleness of the kiss relaying more than a caress. But why not add that as well? Like by combing through Sam’s hair and letting a hand wander a little, over shoulder muscles and sinewy arms.

“Not a single fucking word,” Sam mumbled. However, there was nothing cutting in his voice.

“I know.” Dean’s pelvis gave a last, futile thrust to savor the tight heat in which his softening dick was still buried. Yeah, this was his personal undoing, and fighting a losing battle wouldn’t lead anywhere. They’d better concentrate on the real villains again.

“I worked them out,” Dean said and cupped Sam’s face. “The words, I mean. But don’t expect much.” He grinned. “They’re not exactly new.”

 

 

The End

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, daydreamernv, for steering me around the pitfalls of the English language in such a reliable and patient way! I couldn't have done this without you!
> 
> And to those who saw me stumble around in this fandom but supported my attempts regardless: I'm so indebted to you, too, because without your steady encouragement, I might have lost hope more than once. Cheers to you!

**Author's Note:**

> A shoutout to my beta daydreamernv!


End file.
